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Hands on the
under £100
computers

Little Brothers should
be seen but not heard.

NOW ONLY ,

£ 159.95

inc.VAT.

A maxim which eloquently describes the Brother
HR-5.

Less than a footacross, it’s nonetheless loaded with
features.

The li ttle printer that’s low on decibels.

There’s one thing the 1 fR-5 won’t give you.

Earache.

For the annoying ‘clickety clack 5 many printers
produce is mercifully absent from the HR-5.

Quietly efficient, it delivers high definition
dot matrix text over 80 columns at 50 characters per
second (maximum).

Text or gra phics with ease.

The HR- 5 also has something of an artistic bent

Being capable of producing uni-directional
graphics and chart images together with bi-directional
text What’s more it will hone down characters into
a condensed face, or extend them for added emphasis.

At home with home computers.

Incorporating either a Centronics parallel or

RS-232C interface, the HR-5 is compatible with BBC,
Spectrum, Oric, Dragon, Atari and most other home
computers and popular software.

Perfecdy portable, the battery or mains operated
HR-5 weighs less than 4 lbs, and has a starting price
of only £1 59.95 (inc. VAT).

Which is really something to shout about

PLEASE SEND ME MOKE DETAII S OF Tl IF REMARKABLE BROO ILR |
HR 5 PRINTER

| ADDRESS.

| TEL NO PCN12*fl« fl4 |

AVAILABLE FROM: BOOTS. RYMANS. WILDINGS, SELFRIDGES AND ALL
GOOD COMPUTER EQUIPMENT STOCKISTS.

brother\\

DEPT R BROTI IER OFFICE EQUIPMENT DIVISION, JONES + BROTI IER. SI IEPLEY STREET. GUIDE BRIDGF, AUDENSHAW'. MANCl JESTER M 14 5JD
TELObl 110 69 II (10 LINES) Obi 1100111 (6 LINES)06l 130 101b (4 LINES (TELEX: 669092 BROTHER INDUSTRIES l.TD.. NAGOYA. JAPAN

REGULARS

COVER STORY

SOFTWARE

SPECIALS

PROGRAMS

Atariadvice 22

Extend the range of your Atari with
some sound advice and routines.

Monitor 2

Prices plummet, quality takes quan-
tum leap in Mastertronic push, page 2;
Law changes on Telecom attach-
ments, page 3; Triptych boosts brain
power, page 4; anu Apple brings the
Big Mac to the UK, page 6.

September 15 1984

PCWShow 5

Do yourself a favour and join us at
Olympia next week.

Hands on the
. under £100
computers

Smith Corona's new daisywheel prin-
ter matches its low price and letter
quality with user friendliness.

RandomAccess 7

Readers give their views on the
microcomputing scene and we pay £10
to the best.

Routine Inquiries 10

Got a problem you just can’t figure
out? Cop some advice from PCATs
team of experts.

64 crayons 31

Colourful sketches on the Commod-
ore 64 is the promise of Super Sketch.

PCNCharts 11

The ups and downs of the UK s
favourite games and machines charted
here.

Hands up! 24

The price and the size of portable
computers are shrinking fast. You’ve
got to hand it to Casio and Psion —
they’ve both produced sub-£100 port-
able micros that fit in your fist.

Three's lucky 34

DBase III is smarter, friendlier and
more accomplished than its famous
sibling.

Microwaves 15

Readers share their technical know-
how and get a fiver for every hint in
print.

Bank Raid 18

A hip-hop action game for you to type
into your Spectrum.

Amstrad 36

An original scenario and an addictive
challenge both draw praise from two
PCN gamesters.

Commodore 64 37

A potty action game and capers in
Camelot.

Readout 16

Which books are worth paying good
money for? Our reviewers pick four
off the shelves.

Software Pre-View 33

The shape of things to come. We look
at the new software before it arrives in
the shops.

Spectrum 40

Another set-back for the traditional
English pub: dominoes for the Spec-
trum.

Billboard 43

And good buy to all that — microcom-
puting bargains on our secondhand
page. Can you afford to miss it?

Quit/Datelines 48

An hilarious exit from the good
humour page and a few dates for the
diary.

: __

Chiller turns on heat

By Bryan Skinner

Mastertronic. pioneer of cheap
games, looks likely to set standards
in quality as well as price for the rest
of the software market to follow.

Its release of Chiller for the
Commodore 64 sets a new stan-
dard of cheap games which other
software houses would do well to
look at. and with some trepidation.
Chiller costs £1 .99, the disk version
£5.99. and the game is a winner.

Based loosely on the film Thriller
the program uses an interrupt-
driven version of the Michael
Jackson song. Your task is to rescue
your girlfriend from a haunted
house. There are five screens, each

with good graphics, and at £1 .99 it’s
a steal.

If Mastertronic can continue to
produce games of the standard of
Chiller for this price other soft-
ware houses will be hard pushed.
Software houses such as CRL and
Anirog and others, which recently
formed Omega Software to sell
games that are not considered to he
worth the average £6 — £10
price-tag. could be in for a nasty
shock. Virgin has already been
forced to respond with its older
titles.

Mastertronic's future plans in-
clude a range of educational games
featuring Mr Tronic, a character

created by one gf the company's
directors. Chiller programmers,
including the son of a Mastertronic
director, signed a licensing deal
with Mirrorsoft last year, and a 64
games designer will be issued from
Mirrorsoft in the near future. The
designer was used for much of
Chiller, and the programmers were
responsible for the unexpanded Vic
20 Games Designer, distributed by
Galactic Software.

Mastertronic reckons to have
sold over half a million tapes since
its inception just six months ago.
The company is now involved in a
major export drive and has set up
distribution deals in the US and

several European countries. A
sister company. Mastertronic Inc
has been set up to handle US sales,
whereMastcrtronicgamcswillrctail
for under $10. Average US rates in
the $20 to $30 dollar range.

It seems that even cheap games
are subject to piracy. Mastertronic
has evidence of low-level counter-
feiting in Hull, but the pirated
copies arc selling for £1.99. the
same price as the originals. Perhaps
low-cost software will drive the
pirates out of business.

Mastertronic opened up in April
and set a trend; but WH Smith's
clearance sale of 50p programs is
probably rock-bottom.

At the double

IBM should by now have set a new
w orld record by bringing its new PC
AT (issue 75) to the UK less than a
month after its US launch.

The usually ponderous IBM last
week called a press conference due
to have taken place yesterday
(Tuesday). A tight-lipped spokes-
woman gracefully refused to say
what the press conference would be
about, but the chances are that
IBM’s new wunderkind was the
subject.

The ATs US launch was several
months later than planned — an
international launch had been sche-
duled for May. IBM normally takes
three months or more to announce
products overseas, but in this case it
seems certain to have achieved a
personal best.

The AT with an Intel 80286,
256K. and 1.2Mb on diskette costs
$3,995. It has set the cat among the
pigeons on the US market and has
won the awed admiration of various
sycophants and industry analysts.
Besides PCDOS 3.0. it runs Xenix,
an increasingly popular version of
the multi-user multi-task Unix.

The prompt arrival of the AT
contrasts sharply with the con-
tinued non-appearance here of the

Currah gives 64 a voice

Currah, the people who brought
you the Spectrum Microspccch
speech synthesiser, has now re-
leased one for the Commodore 64.

Speech 64 was developed in
conjunction with General Instru-
ments. On installation and switch-
ing on the unit announces every
keypress (including cursor up and

clear screen) and. using the SAY
command, says whatever phrase
follows.

In addition, two voice depths
(high and low), and two intonations
arc available (using upper and
lower case). The sounds are pro-
duced using the allophone system
allowing letters to be interpreted

directly, and indeed most words.

For £29.95 the Speech 64 is a
small brown cartridge and a lead
that plugs into the video socket. 64
users who use a monitor will need a
separate adaptor to allow them to
connect a monitor as well.

Currah says that Spcech64 will be
available in most high street shops
for Christmas and obviously hopes
to make a killing.

Home Currys

The Cutrys group is pulling out of
business machines and closing
down its Micro-C computer stores,
but expanding for all it's worth in
home computers.

All the 530 stores in the Currys
chain will stock the Spec-
trum and Commodore 64 and,
depending on the amount of room
available, the Commodore 16,
Acorn Electron. Toshiba HX-10
and the BBC B.

Delivery of the Toshiba HX-10.
an MSX machine, is expected
around September 20, at least ten
days before other stores.

The C16 is seen as being a major
Christmas seller. Currys stores
should have a stock of C16s by the
last week in September.

Fuller lives on

The Fuller keyboard lives. A new
company. Nordic Keyboards, has
bought the rights to manufacture
and distribute the controversial
keyboard in the wake of Fuller's
crash (issue 76).

But Nordic will not be taking on
Fullcr'sdcbts. w hich is bad news for
the estimated 230 customers whose
cheques were cashed by Fuller but
who never received a keyboard.

With the change of owner comes
an improved design for the FDS.
This aims to overcome problems
with the keyboard crashing prog-
rams and it alters the layout of some
keys.

Nordic is a sister company to the
Firm that manufactured the
keyboards for Fuller and it is keen

to avoid the mistakes that Fuller
made.

Firstly it aims to produce suffi-
cient keyboards to meet demand.
'We arc satisfied that we can meet
the heavy demand that we expect in
the run up to Christmas.' said John
Gray. Nordic's managing director.

Secondly, it will not be handling
mail-order sales, but will distribute
direct to dealers. We have 80 at the
moment and the list is expanding,'
said Mr Gray.

Although Nordic has bought he
trading name, tooling, stock and
copyright from Fuller's liquidator it
was reluctant to take the debts.

We lost money ourselves.' said
Mr Gray, 'and we can't afford
£13,000 owed to customers.'

Fuller FDS keyboard — Nordic picks
up the pieces.

PCN SEPTEMBER 15 1984

ifljwuaiiLia

Long arm of BT

By Ralph Bancroft

Almost unnoticed, it has become a
criminal offence to attach un-
approved equipment to the public
telecommunications network.

British Telecom last week denied
rumours that it was planning a crack
down on people using unapproved
modems and other telecommunica-
tions equipment.

But fears oftougherenforcemcnt
remain, following key sections of
the Telecommunications Act com-
ing into force last month.

Under the Act it is. for the first
time, a criminal offence to attach
unapproved equipment. Previously
British Telecom relied on the threat
of disconnection to deal with offen-

ders or. in extreme cases, it took
people to court for stealing its
electricity.

Now a criminal prosecution can
be brought by a local Trading
Standards Officer. BT or the De-
partment of Trade and Industry-
Anyone found guilty will be liable
to a fine of up to £2.000.

It is relatively easy for BT to find
out if you're using unauthorised
equipment like an unapproved
modem. The line testing equip-
ment it uses is sensitive enough to
detect whether a subscriber has
more than just a single phone
attached to the line.

A quick check of its records
would reveal whether the subscri-

Hewson heads

Cortex II — build-rt yourself in 16- bits from Powertran.

Cortex II boxes 16-bit brain

for Avalon

Hewson Consultants is broadening
its outlook.

Last week saw the release of
Avalon, an ‘arcade-adventure'
that's a far cry from programs like
the Scidabb Attack series and Hew-
son 's flight programs. Butit'snolso
far from the graphics and text
adventure Fantasia Diamond, now
available forthc BBC and Electron,
though without the graphics.

Fantasia Diamond is being sold in
Europe and has been translated
into French and Dutch.

Avalon is easiest to imagine as a
cross between Alchemist and Atie
Atac. You play the part of the astral
projection of Maroc the magician,
moving around Avalon's 255 loca-
tions depicted in 3D.

Hewson is spurning Sinclair's
Microdrivc in favour of Rotronic's
Wafadrivc. Microdrive cartridge
duplication costs were blamed for
this move, together with doubts
about cartridge reliability. New
games will be released on cassette
and Wafadrivc ‘wafers', and some
of the existing range of Hewson
software will be put onto the
format.

Powertran Cybernetics has laun-
ched what is probably the cheapest
1 6-bit micro money can buy. With a
starting price ofonly £299 plus VAT
the Cortex II offers a resident
Basic, a built-in Asscmbler/Dis-
asscmblcr. and interfaces for cas-
sette. TV and RS232C. The only
snag is that you must build the
machine yourself from a kit. This
could turn out to be a strong selling
point among members of the

her has had the additional equip-
ment installed by BT.

Its suspicions aroused. BT could
send an engineer round to your
house to check your phone .

The extent to which BT will use
this procedure to launch a deliber-
ate clamp-down remains to be seen
though some people think it unlike-
ly. 'Our engineers have got better
things to do.' said one BT source.

But with the rapid increase in the
use of modems by micro users and
the lengthy approval procedures of
the British Approval Board for
Tclccommunicalions(issuc52).BT
could decide that the numbers of
unapproved modems in use war-
rants action.

Soldering Appreciation Society.

A number of optional extras are
available for the Cortex II including
interfaces for RGB and floppy disk
drives. Powertran says some experi-
ence of electronic construction is
needed to pul the machine
together, but a help and repair
service is available just in case you
get stuck.

Details from Powertran on
(0264)64455

QL software
explosion
on the way

Third party software for the QL
looks set to surface soon. Bristol-
based Metacomco (0272 42X781)
has joined in with an assembler due
for launch in October for the
Sinclair system.

The software houses at least seem
to be taking the OL seriously as a
business machine — Mctacomco's
assembler will cost £59.95. and the
little QL software about currently
seems to be coming in at around
£30-£50. In some cases this will he
the ‘new machine on the market,
take the money and run' syndrome
in operation, but from the sound of
the Metacomco package it's more a
case of quality costs.

The company claims it is a full
specification assemhler/devclop-
ment kit. incorporating a full-
screen editor. It's finished, and is
now going through beta testing.
Watch this space for a review.

W H Smith
hits the road
with Advance

The Ad vancc 86 goes on t he road in
a series of Computer Exhibition
evenings organised by WH Smith

During the evening you'll be able
to use an Advance and gel advice on
software and add-ons for the
machine Confirmed venues are at
W H Smith shops at Bradford.
Broadway (12 September); and
Fairfield Halls. Croydon (31
October).

Other venues and dates have not
yet been confirmed, but the exhibi-
tion will tour the country until
February 1985. For further in-
formation contact 01-353 0277.

If the Croydon venue is any guide
you should look out for names from
the old rock tour circuit — Colston,
De Montfort, and Free Trade.

Crisis looms in games trade

By David Guest

TTic lines of supply that put software
into the shops are taking another
battering as manufacturers, distri-
butors and shop-keepers square up
to each other.

Only three weeks ago Prism
pulled out of software distribution.
Another leading software distribu-
tor. Wcbstcrs. is now coming under
fire as all the links in the chain try to
live with the slump in demand that
has hit the software industry this
summer.

Wcbstcrs. the middle man be-
tween the software producer and
stores like Boots and Kelts that sell

you the goods, has been criticised
for the terms under which it trades.
But Clive Digby-Jones. head of the
company, defended its policy: 'We
are an honest broker, supporting
both the retailer and the supplier
If we're to continue, which we fully
intend to do. we must be free to
deal.’

He also issued a warning that has
far-reaching implications for users
in the choice and availability of
software they can expect: ‘Unless
the retailers, the wholesalers and
the manufacturers get together and
everybody gives way a little it will be
left to the survival of the fittest.’

The summer has been a bad one
for software companies and store
owners alike, and it looks as though
distributors arc getting it in the neck
from both sides. A lot of people
have ended up over-stocked.’ said
Mr Digby-Jones. w ho is also secret-
ary of the Guild of Software
Distributors. He contrasted this
with earlier boom times when
retailers enjoyed high discounts
and manufacturers could reckon on
high returns. Now some of the
retailers are being forced out of the
business, and under-capitalised
software houses are feeling the
pinch.

We all face the problems of
piracy, of smaller retailers going
under, and larger retailers making
quite heavy demands.' he said.
‘Now we are facing realism.'

A crisis has been looming for the
software industry throughout the
summer, with some well-known
names and several smaller ones
going out of business. All the
parties arc looking to a bumper
Christmas to see them out of the
woods, but Mr Digby-Jones said
thathewastryingtoset upasericsof
meetings to ensure that a short-
term improvement doesn't obscure
the seriousness of the problem.

PCN SEPTEMBER 15 1984

VIEW FROM AMERICA

Screen test
m ahead for US
1 micro stars

By Chris Rowiey

A sign of the times, or a portent for Mac sales? The University of
California's nine huge campuses plus the lSCalifornia State campuses
have signed a deal with Apple to sell Macs for as little as half its $2,500
list price.

The lucky MacPeopie will be faculty, full-time students and those
staff members who need computers in their work, and their computer
freak friends of course — to whom MacPeopie with no love of
computers have been turning all overthe country to find their cheap but
unwanted Mac a good home.

Elsewhere, Commodore dropped the other shoe and announced its
purchase of Amiga Corporation for an undisclosed amount. Recently
CBM chairman Marshall Smith was quoted as saying that Commodore
would introduce a machine similarto the Mac but priced below Si ,000.

Amiga is known to have developed a 68 ,000- based micro with many
striking features, including clear 80-column text on a normal TV set.
This Mill undoubtedly become Commodore’s new entry next year.

Certainly Commodore will need something new and zappy. At least
ten major Japanese firms are about to launch MSX micros here, to be
priced between $200 and $400. Actual retail prices could be much,
much lower as the giants grapple for market share. More expensive
home computers could be wiped out. Some analysts view the
Commodore 64 as vulnerable if the MSX hordes turn up with an
adequate software catalogue.

The news of another Japanese thrust into the personal computer
market came from Sharp, which is about to introduce the first 25 by 80
flat panel LCD screen.

This is a forerunner of a profusion of large area flat panel (LAFP) LCD
screens we’re likely to see in the next year and thereafter. Indeed a new
struggle is shaping up between small US firms and Japanese majors
over LAFPs. The Americans are ahead in technology at the moment, led
by tiny companies such as Crystalvision of Sunnyvale, California, which
will gross less than $1 million this year but may hit $100 million in two
years’ time.

These firms are working on advanced LCD systems that offer much
better visibility for LCD characters. They are also racing towards full
colour LCD panels and Mill have such devices available sooner rather
than later. The crucial thing is cost. Today's bulk price on CRT screens is
less than $100 per unit. Sharp plans to market its LAFP for $120 early
next year. The question being asked in US industry is simple — what
happens when LAFP colour screens become that cheap?

Crystaloid of Ohio, for instance, sells custom-tailored LCDs into the
automobile industry, which is busy adding a plethora of screens to the
cockpits of modem cars. Indeed LCDs are proliferating at an
astonishing rate in electronic boxes of every kind. A well-equipped
home may present seven or eight blinking time displays glowing on the
TV, stereo, VCR all together — an unnerving sight first thing in the

At the same time audio chips, like the Texas Instruments TMS 5220,
have become an increasingly common component of everyday
equipment. Generations of Americans have learned to pronounce
English through Tl’s Speak and Spell. But even those accustomed to
computer voices may not be ready for such items as the talking
dashboard in the new Dodge 600ES. Where's all this heading?

Well, take a look at Digital Equipment’s DECtalk, a $4,000 unit that
offers sophisticated speech synthesis and a lot more. DECtalk has 256K
of ROM, 32K RAM, two phone jacks, two RS232C ports, an internal
speaker with volume control, audio and headphone jacks, and software
that pronounces English uttra-precisely. It sounds a little remote, like a
Scandinavian reporting from deep space.

However DECtalk has seven different voices, including Huge Harry,
Uppity Ursula, Kit the kid, and Rough Rita — who must be the first
speech-synthetic bag lady. If you have a phone with letters as well as
numbers, you can listen to them yourself on 0101-617 493 TALK.

Triptych taped

Software for somebody who
doesn't want to know too much
about how a computer works.'
That's how Triptych Publishing
describes its Brainpower range,
launched last week.

The company's first six products
each include a training and an
applications tape. The training is in
how the application works, not how
the computer does. Most of the
titles are straight business functions
and the range overall becomes a
guide to good business practice.

Application through learning'.
Triptych calls it. The approach is
unusual, the relevant host micros —
Spectrum. BBC. Commodore 64
and soon the Amstrad — arc not the
most expensive business machines,
and Triptych's background is en-
couraging. The company and its
products have been born out of the
London Business School.

Entrepreneur shows you what to
look out for when setting up a
business: Decision Maker. Project
Planner and Forecaster arc self-
explanatory but they aren't res-
tricted to business applications.

Numbers at Work is an exercise in
numeracy with business aspects in
compound interest. VAT. PAYE
and the like. Star Watcher teaches
identification of various objects in
the heavens.

In demonstrations the programs
looked impressive and the docu-
mentation was equally so. Stuart
Armstrong, managing editor of
Tritych, said: i don't believe the
screen is the place for large amounts
of text.' Each pair of tapes comes
with a ring-bound booklet which
can be propped up and used like a
flip-chart as you go through the
program. It's a small point but a
thoughtful touch.

Not all the programs run on all
the machines. Project Planner and
Forecaster are available for the
BBC at £19.95 on tape and £24.95
on disk: these two, plus Entrep-
reneur. Numbers at Work, and
Decision Maker for the 64 cost the
same: and the last three, plus Star
Watcher, cost £14.95 on the Spec-
trum.

Triptvch Publishing is on Cam-
berlcy (0276) 62144.

MOVING PICTURES — Computers and
art came together in an exhibition at
the Hamilton Gallery, in London last

monitors, the three-day event had
pictures produced by under 12s to the
over 18s. H was the result of the

* %

Art Challenge, where 200 entrants
wrote their own software usinga Vic 20
or Commodore 64, to produce a still or
moving picture. The winners shared
£25,000 of prize money to buy
Commodore equipment. And the over-
all winner of the competition was Hugh
Riley, with his Meditation Failure and

£1,500 worth of Commodore equip-

i a £5,000 endowment to study
I computer art anywhere in the world.

ACT systems run country as
business takes backseat

Users of Sirius or Apricot micros
fed up with word processing memos
andfillingout spreadsheets can no w
relieve the boredom by playing
games for the executive.

The aptly named Electoral Ser-
vices (0427 788595) has converted
Simon Hcssel's 'Great Britain Li-
mited' and his new strategy game
'Inheritance' to run on these pri-
marily business micros.

For the uninitiated. Great Bri-
tain Ltd casts you in the role of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer with
the task of adjusting taxation and
welfare rates as well as public
spending with an election on the
way.

In inheritance you are the lucky
recipient of a £10.000 legacy which

you have to turn into £1 million by
shrewdly putting the money into
investments or gambling.

The two games arc available on
disk for £23 by mail order.

. PCN SEPTEMBER 15 IW4

PCN at the PCW Show

The stage is set, the lights go down,
the curtain rises, it's time for the
PCW Show .

The seventh PCW Show gets
under way at Olympia next week,
and there’s one vital piece of
information you’ll need — the route
to the PCN stand. We’re there on
Icvel2.standnumher 1002. ready to
refresh the parts that other stands

Consult the
Computerdoc

At last! A doctor you don’t have to
make an appointment to sec. With
his stethoscope and soldering iron
Computerdoc will be making his
rounds of the UK's most popular
micros on stand 1002.

On Thursday and Friday our
honorary doctors will be dealing
with questions on BBC and Oric
micros, in sickness or in health.
Over the weekend Spectrum and
Commodore f>4 owners can take
advantage of their confident board-
side manner.

If your micro isn't among these
featured machines, come along
anyway and Computerdoc will see
what he can do for you. No
reasonable requests refused, but we
can't offer spare part surgery (or
organ transplants for MIDI
owners).

won't reach with our blend of new
and old. fun and hard fact, and a
universal welcome.

New as in the new-look PCN ,
(don't miss next week's issue) but it
isn't completely away with the old
— the faces will be familiar even if
the T-shirts have changed this year.
The fun will be in the form of a
games contest that could win you a

robot, a modem, or an Amstrad
micro. And for the four days of the
show, from September 20 to 23.
Computerdoc will be on hand to
answer yourquestions on the BBC.
Oric. Spectrum and Commodore
machines. His willing assistants will
do w hat they can on others.

Back to back with us. Pan) PCN
will be showing off its latest books.

and diagonally opposite on the
BBC's own Chip Shop stand you’ll
be able to check the PCN Games
Charts.

And if you’re just looking for a
place to stop and take it easy after a
hard days trudging round the show,
step in and have a chat . There arc no
plans at the moment to charge you
rent

Winning ways

From the first to the last minute of
the show we'll be running a custom-
designed shoot-’em-upgame based
on the training that armed police-
men go through in the iawless
United States.

Get the highest score of the day
and we'll award you a Prism modem
for the micro of your choice before
we send you out to face mobsters.
For the runner-up every day there's
a Prism Movit. If by the end of the
show your score is still out in front,
you win the star prize, a brand new
Amstrad CPC464.

The game will be running on
three BBC micros so you won't
have to stand in a queue; all we ask
you to do is fill in a form before you
play — so that we know where to
send the prize.

There will also be the chance to
buy the game yourself at a future
date when we publish it in PCN.
Watch this space . . .

PCN SEPTEMBER 15 1984

Big Mac is big softy

Apple is building up a head of steam
behind the Macintosh with the
launch of the 512K version and
plans for a rapid expansion of its
software programme.

The Big Mac is due to make its
UK ddbut today (Wednesday), and
Apple also expects to be able to
offer 150 packages for the Mac line
by the end of the year.

By Apple's standards this is a
paltry sum — the Apple II line
boasts the largest software cata-
logue of any micro in the world —
but it is an important step in
bolstering the Mac.

Due to be available this week are
Filevision. PFS: File and Report.
Microsoft Chart, a database called
Habadcx. and others that bring the

current total of packages to 50.

The production of software for
the Mac is central to the machine's
prospects, and from there to Ap-
ple's. Apple UK's new boss David
Hancock sees the Macintosh as
more than just a critical system for
the company — more a symbol of
the company's style. Mac is diffe-
rent.' he said. We can do the same
things as any other company — we
can count beans as well as anyone —
but you've got to go further than
that.'

He calls the Mac a ‘power tool', a
means of extending the talents of
the user and. most adventurously, a
product to match the personality of
the person who buys it. You might
have thought you were buying a

micro, but obviously there's more
to it than meets the eye.

The challenge isn't just produc-
ing software." says Mr Hancock.
*it's producing the right type of
softw are. People are going tocreate
with it. communicate with it. enjoy
it.

What we're doing now is to try to
look into the future and program for
that.' he adds, meaning the direc-
tion of the company as well as the
development of the Macintosh. But
again the Mac serves as an example
— ‘it will have to change to meet
changes from the users, who are
going to put challenges on us when
they start using the machine in their
own way.'

So. after the larger Mac you can

expect communications facilities
and much more software. The
present offerings aren't cheap —
even the games cost upwards of £25
— but Apple left the cheap and
cheerful image behind a long time
ago.

The Apple II family isn't being
abandoned, but Mr Hancock sees it
continuing to develop largely
through the momentum that has
built up behind it over the years. An
illustration of what he means was
provided last week by Hilderbay
which is offering a free Apple He
and software to any user, reviewer
or Inland Revenue staff member
who finds an error of calculation in
its payroll or Statutory Sick Pay
packages for the II. lie and lie.

Club looks for Infomaniacs

Schools making do with only one
computer to a classroom of students
can turn to the newly established
Infomania Club as an alternative.

Infomania is a Watford-based
organisation set up to give schools
and the general public access to and
advice on computers. At the mo-
ment. it's in its pilot stage but if all
goes well another 30 centres will be
opened around the country

The club, which is backed by
Vidal Sassoon and Acorn Compu-
ter among others, has spent £35,000
buying micros — BBC's. Spec-
trums, and Commodore 64s — and
by Christmas it hopes to add the
MSX machine

Norma McClellan said: We're
providing a facility that schools

could not provide for themselves.
As well as each child having a
machine to use. we will also have a
full range of software for anyone to
try out. It will be up to individuals
how they spend their time at the
centre — but there'll always be
someone here to give help and
advice.’

1 1 will cost £ 1 5 an hour for schools
to use the computers and other
users will be charged £ 1 5 for a year’s
subscription. For further informa-
tion contact Infomania on Watford
55122.

If the club succeeds it will be a
sorry reflection on the govern-
ment's schemes to place micros in
schools. But Infomania will not aim
to educate.

Film explains
Privacy Act

As the implications of the Data
Protection Act begin to dawn on
micro users a training film on the
subject must be a welcome guide to
a confused subject.

Produced by Video Arts. ‘Data
Protection, the Law and You' is
primarily directed at companies.
But it should be of interest to clubs
and user groups as well as the
self-employed and small businesses
using microcomputers or word
processors.

The 13V* minute film covers the
key features of the new legislation
and how it affects both data users
(those holding computerised in-
formation ) and data subjects (those
on whom information is kept).

It is available for hire on video
cassette for £65 for two days or £80
for seven days. A better bet for
organisations that want to show the

film several times is to buy it on
video or 16mm film outright for
£175.

Accompanying the film there's
an explanatory booklet. One copy
is available free with every hiring.
Additional copies can be ordered at
£2.50 each or £2.00 each if 50 or
more copies are ordered.

The film reflects the uncertain
nature of the legislation in advarto;
of it coming intoeffect ( issue 76) but
at least it draws attention to the
subject. It should certainly be seen
by anyone who keeps computerised
personal data.

Video Arts offers a free pre-view
service at 22 places around the
country for those who may be
interested in buying or hiring the
film.

Video Arts can be contacted on
01-637 7288.

OUT AND ABOUT — Turning heads in London’s West End last week were three
Prism Topo robots making sedate progress from Bond Street tube station to the
new premises of Computers of Wigmore Street. The march of the robots marked
the opening of the store's new shop at 104 Wigmore Street; they’ll be followed
over the coming weeks by demonstrations of the systems on sale or in the
pipeline. The shop has a reputation for being first — for example with Memotech
systems and with retail Microdrives — and when owner Michael Litvin says he
hopes to show off the Enterprise, the Commodore 16 and Plus/4, and perhaps
the Acorn Business Machine, there's a good chance they’ll be there.

PCN SEPTEMBER 15 1984

Printing anywhere on
the Spectrum screen |

With reference to John Lattice's
program (issue 76) I’d like to point
out that printing on the bottom two
lines of the Spectrum can be both
fast and easy.

The key is held in the system
variable DF SZ which contains the
number of lines in the lower screen.
This is normally set at 2. but
roKEing 23659 changes this. Setting
DF SZ to 0 enables printing on the
bottom two lines but must be reset
to 2 before exiting the program or
an input or the Spectrum w ill crash.

The following listing demons-
trates:

to HORDE K 4
20 POKE 2J<«S»,0
JO FOR i = I TO 24
40 PRINT

50 NEXTI
Ml PAUSED
70 POKE 2J6SV, 2

Andy Goodsell.

Kenley. Surrey.

Yes. there are a number of quick
ways to produce printing on the
bottom two lines of the screen — the
one you propose is in the manual. In
general you must be careful, or
you 'll crash the Spectrum .The point
of WKting directly to the screen is
first that it is a system that allows you
to print anywhere on the Spectrum s
screen, and second that it promotes
understanding of the way the Spec-
trum's screen operates. — Ed.

A blot oiV PCN s
Atari copybook

PCN is one of the few micro
magazines to devote much time to
the much under-rated Atari home
micros. However, in issue 76. you
quoted the managerof Tomorrow's
World Today assaying ‘Let’s face it .
there's no enough software for the
Atari machines'.

That statement is totally untrue.
The Ataris have as much software
as the Spectrum, which has more
software than the Commodore 64.
Atari software may be expensive,
but it is good.

The 600XL is the cheapest I6K
home micro with a full typewriter
keyboard, the 800XL is the
cheapest 64K home micro. theTrak
Ball the cheapest in Britain and so
are the Touch Tablets and four
colour printcr/plottcrs.

So it’s tough luck on Commod-
ore.they will lose their market share
(some of it).

Stephen Prince,

Ashbourne, Derbys.

I would like to correct your correc-
tion (Syntax Errors, issue 76). The
spreadsheet which links to Chart-
pak 64 is called Busicalc (not
Visacalc). and although Chartpak is

a :

Would you like to see your name in print?
Here is your chance on PCN's letters page.

an American program I am glad to
say that Busicalc is a home-grown
product of Supcrsoft.

I can also help your readers with
regard to interfacing Chartpak with
an Epson or similar printer. We arc
producing a special version of
Printlink 64 (the printer driver
software Supcrsoft sells in conjunc-
tion with a low-cost cable) which
will not be overwritten by Chart-
pak. By the time this letter appears
in print it should be available.

By the way. our new Busicalc 3
( three-dimensional . bar charts, etc)
can also link with Chartpak 64.
Don’t, however, direct your read-
ers to us for copies of Chartpak —
we’re happy for Adamsoft to hand-
le the sales.

Peter Calver.

Supersoft.

Harrow, Middx.

An outsider steals
the limelight

I recently decided to buy my
daughter her own home computer
because of the start of computer
studies at school, and so she
wouldn't have to use mine. I own a
48 K Spectrum.

My initial idea was to buy my
daughter her own Spectrum. This I
would have done, had I not come
across a really amazing micro. Its
sound and graphical capabilitiesarc
astounding. With sockets for Cen-
tronic printer, joysticks, video and
hi-fi outputs already built-in.

The more I studied the specifica-
tions. the more I discovered how
superior it was to my own humble
Spectrum. So much so that I have
decided to give the Spectrum to my
daughter and I am keeping the new
one.

You arc most probably wonder-
ing. which micro I am writing
about? It is a Sord M5. which I can
highly recommend.

David Hambly.

Ilford, Essex.

Structured progamming is fre-
quently misunderstood to be a
practice of writing software devoid
of goto statements. The object of
applying structured programming
techniques is to produce code which
is well-documented, less prone to
side-effects, easy to maintain and
generally flexible. These are virtues
that a large piece of software must
possess before I would be happy
with it. but a small piece of software
should still be well-written.

Structured tcchiqucs can be ap-
plied to software targeted for
Assembler as well as structured'
high-level languages eg Pascal. So
the banner of 'GOTO-Icss' program-
ming is a nonsense.

Finally, all that structured techni-
ques do is to provide programmers
with a better idea of what they're
trying to program. This under-
standing produces programs that-
work and continue to work.

J Kramer

New Southgate, London.

Magazine listings
are an asset

After reading A Sturgcss’ letter
(issue 74). I could not help writing
on the subject of magazine listings.
He states that magazines contain
‘too many" listings, and asks if it is
due to 'too few people getting to
grips with programming'.

Well. I enjoy typing in magazine
listings a great deal, not due to my
incapability of writing my own
programs, but because by using
iistings, I can learn new ideas and
change the program by incorporat-
ing my own ideas.

Is this justified?

Adrian Field,

Clacton-on-Sea. Essex.

Most certainly. Next week's issue
should be right up your street.— Ed.

| Junking the
[piracy advocates

Two letters in issue 76 particularly
caught my attention.

First, Mr K Hewson's. If you
wanted a motor car and could not
afford it. would you feel justified in
stealing one? And. if you arc
working, would you feel happy
about a third person helping them-
selves out of your pay packet?
When you advocate tape copying
on any scale you advocate stealing
from the publisher and robbing the
authors of part of their income.

Is this really your idea of ethics?

Next. Neil CJlncr. I could not
agree more, and think I know the
reason. Every sport and pastime

PCN £10 Star Letter

has its lunatic fringe who buy
everything they can get their hands
on. The Spectrum's lunatic fringe’
must run into tens of thousands, a
ready market for junk books.

But here is a possible remedy.
Ncvcrbuy a book by mailorder All
decent bookshops are made for
good books so be wary of a book
which docs not find its way onto
their shelves.

Spend at least fifteen minutes
browsing through a book's pages.
Should the bookseller object, go to
another shop.

If only all computer owners
would adopt this approach, the
junk books would cease to sell.

Now a final word to the less
well-off. There are plenty of good
games listings in the magazines.
Why not enter these instead of
stealing from publishers and
authors? If you decide to do this
take a little time to ensure that you
understand every line. Then you
will realise just how much hard slog
goes into writing a program. And.
just as important, you will learn first
how to change and improve the
published programs and then how
to produce your own. You could
soon be turning out marketable
material. Then if you find your
programs arc being pirated, you
will be hopping mad.

C Matthews,

London W2.

Air your opinions, share your
experiences or just point out
our occasional blunders. If
you have an impressive way
with words you may gain £10
f or the star letter.

WRITETO: Random Access, ""
Personal Computer News,
VNU, Evelyn House, 62
Oxford St reet . London W1 A
2HG.

PCN SEPTEMBER 15 1984

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160 cps £569- £ 499.00

) — £399^ £349.00 ♦ vat

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Friction and tractor feed as
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Its heart Is the same Lisa technology of windows, pull-down
menus, mouse commands 32-bit power more useful by making
Macintosh far easier to use.

Now for some small talk

If the problem won't come to Macintosh, you can always take
Macintosh to the problem — it weighs 9 pounds less than the
most popular portable computer.

Just pick Macintosh up by its built-in handle, and carry it.

A micracle of miniaturisation is Macintosh's built-in 3J* drive.
Its discs store 400K - more than conventional 51* floppies.

Programs.

There are already plenty of remarkable programs available to
keep Machintosh busy. Like MacPaint a program that, for the
first time, lets a personal computer produce virtually any
image that the hand can create.

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There's more software on the way from developers like
Microsoft. Lotus and Software Publishing to mention a few. And
with Macintosh BASIC. Macintosh PASCAL and our own
Macintosh Toolbox for writing your own mouse driven
programs, you could turn a few bob in your spare time.

All the right connections

On the back of the machine, you'll find built-in RS232 and
RS422 Applebus serial communication ports lor connecting
printers, modems, and other peripherals withoul adding

Talking of extras

Macintosh has a built-in polyphonic sound generator capable
of producing high-quality speech and music.

Machintosh automatically makes room for illustrations in text.
MacPaint — virtually any image the human hand can create.
Microsoft's Multiplan for Macintosh.

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The Grappler offers a complete answer to printer
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Even Commodore’s graphic character set can be
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Graphics screen dump routines include rotated,
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22 unique text and graphics commands.

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ROUTINE INQUIRIES

Lost in a maze of bits and bytes, trapped in a forest of errors, bugged by Basic*
CALL on us. Our panel of experts is at your command.

Write to: Routine Inquiries.
Personal Computer News,
VNU. Evelyn House. 62
Oxford Street, London W1 A
2HG.

Pixel packing
Amstrad

Q When defining characters
on my Amstrad. I found
that the explanation in the user
instructions was not explicit as
to the order and magnitude of
numbers for the svmimii. com-
mand. My Amstrad seems to
count the rows from top to
bottom and columns from right
to left. This means that using the
accepted convention of the bot-
tom left cell of a matrix as ( 1 . 1 ),
characters come out upside
down and the w rong wav round.
Why is this?

D Carnaghan,

Watford. Herts.

A Theansweris simple. Many
home computers use an 8
by 8 matrix for characters. The
rows of the matrix are num-
bered from 1 to 8 going down-
wards. When you want to set a
pixel in the matrix, you have to
work out its decimal value. This
is found by the formula 2'n,
where n is the bit position. Bit
positions are numbered 0 to 7.
from right to left. So, if you
wanted alternate bits set on a
row. (binary pattern 10101010)
you’d convert this to decimal as
2‘7 + 2*5 + 2*3 + 2*1 (ie
128+32+8+2), giving 170.
This would be the value to pass
to symbol to define the pixel
pattern for a row.

Simplifying the
QL’s assembler

Q I am interested in software
that will allow me to get to
grips with 68008 assembl) lan-
guage on my QI.. As yet I’ve
been unable to track down any
suppliers, can you help?

S. Clifford.

Earls field, London.

A We know of three QL
assemblers. These are avail-
able from Computer One (0233
862616) at £29.95 and Meta-
compco (0272 428 781) at
£69.95. The official Sinclair
assembler will be the one writ-
ten by GST and should be
available soon. GST also pro-
duces an assembler which runs
under its 68K/OS. a plug-in card
which replaces Sinclair's

ODOS. The card costs £99.95
and the assembler retails at
£39.95. KAT (4A. Lower
Grosvenor Place. London SW1)
sells a QL monitor for £19.95
and GST will be producing a
relocatable linker in the next
few months.

Rumour has it that a SID
program ‘Symbolic Instruction
Debugger’ to run under ODOS
is currently under develop-
ment, but by whom, for how
much and w hen are still closely
guarded secrets.

Spectrum interrupts
pause for thought

I’ve been trying to write
W arcade programs for the
ZX Spectrum, but I believe that
you first need to understand Z80
interrupts.

Why are interrupts so impor-
tant?

Kim Gerhardl,

Birkenhead.

A Interrupts are exactly what
they claim to be. The Spec-
trum’s Z80 processor receives
an interrupt every 20ms. and
this forces it to suspend what-
ever it’s doing and jump to 38
hex or 56 decimal. It then
increments the system variable
FRAMES, scans the keyboard
to see if you’re keying anything
in. then goes back to what it was
doing.

Now, although interrupts are
first and foremost meant to aid
the Spectrum's housekeeping,
they can be very powerful for
programming purposes. The
reason is quite simple — be-
cause they stop the program for
a short period, go and do
something else, then return to
the program without you notic-
ing they provide a sort of
multi-tasking facility. In the
case of most micros, by the way.
multi-tasking is doing two
things at the same time, but not
at the same instant.

The Z80 chip itself has three
interrupt modes. Mode Gallows
the interrupting device to place
one instruction on the data bus
after the interrupt. Mode 1
jumps to 38 hex or 56 decimal,
and is the one used by the
Spectrum. In Mode 2 the Z80
expects the interrupting device
to place one byte of data on the
data bus, and this acts as the low
order of the address. The Z80
takes the contents of the I. or
‘interrupt vector register." as
the high byte, and the Z80

obtains from this address a
further address it will jump to.

This last is the crucial point. If
you can change the I register to
point to your own routine.
Robert is your mother's
brother. Cracking this is by no
means easy, but there are
plenty of books around that
supply the information. Try
Advanced Spectrum Machine
language by David Webb,
published by Melbourne
House. It's not the easiest book
to get on with, but once you've
got the hang of the basics, it’s
invaluable.

Glad tidings for a
new TRS-80 owner

Q I recently purchased a I6K
TRS-80 Color Computer in
Tandy's sale. I also bought a
printer.

However, I’m now rather
worried that I mas base purch-
ased a useless machine, as there
seems to be no software. Tandy
has a few ROM cartridges but
these cost £l7-£29 each.

I’m really only interested in
utility programs, databases etc.
Can anyone help w ith advice? Is
there a user group? Or should I
have known better?

R Pyatt,

Orpington. Kent.

A Unless you’re prepared to
doquite a lot of work on the
machine yourself, yes you
should have known better, but
on the other hand it could have
been worse. Tandy provides a
fair amount of support for its
machines, and you should be
able to pick up a leaflet or
magazine from your local store.
But even the most determined
of Tandy salespeople would be
hard put to say the machine's
ever going to achieve much in
the way of third party support in
this country.

As an aside, we’d just like to
stress to Tandy salespeople that
we’re not organising a competi-
tion, so please don’t phone.

Fortunately, the TRS-80
range is well-catered for as far
as clubs are concerned. The
National TRS-80 user group is
based in Birmingham, and can
be contacted on 021-747 2260.
Nearer to you is the Kent
TRS-80 user group on
Rainham 36701 2 . and the South
West London user group on
01-394 2123. There are plenty
more in the rest of the country.

? Whatever the problem.

should you feel like moving
house.

Besides this, all is not lost.
You’ll have noticed Tandy is
selling third party software that
is converted from the Dragon,
and you’ll find it easy enough to
use Dragon listings with just a
little conversion.

There are also converter
tapes around, one being Elkan
Electronics’ Dragon Cruncher,
which converts from Dragon to
TRS-80 and vice versa.

This should allow you access
to the Dragon software avail-
able. You can get in touch with
Elkan on 061-798 7613.

Using the Memotech
USR command

Q Could you tell me how to use
the undocumented ink
command on the Memotech
M I X 500?

The manual states that the
computer jumps to the address
stored at F.489I1, but it docs not
explain precisely how to define
the svntax at bytes FA85II to
FAttH.

Also, can you tell me how to
utilise fexpand at FA&E and
i sLRNot) at FAAI.

Mark Cytera,

Bristol, Avon.

A The MTX supports two
ways of executing machine
code. You can do this either by
using the built-in ‘Front Panel’
or by using the usr function.

To use the USR function you
must supply the address of the
machine code routine in a Basic
statement, for example let
M c=usk(nnnn). Here you're
just pointing at a memory
address from Basic, and the
machine code is executed from
there.

For example:

to GOTO 20

20 LET MC=USR ( IMSo) (DECIM-
AL OF £4042)

30 GOTO 30

40 REM MACHINE CODE SECTION
SO CODE

£4042 LD HL, ISO
£404$ LD A, 18
£4047 ADD A,L
£4048 LD L,A
£4049 LD B,H
. . . LD C,L
. . . RET

After calling the machine code
routine, the usr will return
with the value of the BC
registers.

And in this case the register
pair is assigned to MC, and MC
will equal 168.

PCN SEPTEMBER 15 1984

jh: charts

GAMES

NEW WEEKLY CHART! NEW WEEKLY CHART

GAME TITLE

PUBLISHER

MACHINE

PRICE i

Decathlon

Activision

C64

£9.99

Sabre Wulf

Ultimate

£9.95

Full Throttle

Micromega

£6.95

Match Point

Psion

£7.95

Beach-Head

US Gold

C64

£9.95

Daley's Decathlon

Ocean

SP, C64

£6.90

Monty Mole

Gremlin

SP, C64

£5.95 I

Micro Olympics

Database

SP. C64, AC

£6.95

Jet Set Willy

Soft Projects

£5.95

Lords of Midniqht

Beyond

£9.95

TLL

Vortex

£595

Arabian Nights

Interceptor

C64

£7 00

Mugsy

Melbourne

£6.95 1

Trashman

N Generation QS

SP, C64

£5.95

Jack & B'Stalk

Thor

£5.95

Potty Pigeon

Gremlin

C64

£7.95

Psytron

Beyond

£7.95

Olmpicon

Hitech

SP. C64

£6.95

Tank Duel

Real Time

£5.50

Loco

Alligata

C64

£7.95

Stop the Express

Psion

£5.90

—

Kosmic Kanqa

Micromania

£5.95

—

Fighter Pilot

Digital

£7.95

War of the Worlds

CRL

£5.95

—

Blagger

Alligata

C64, AC

£7.95

Int Football

CBM

C64

£9.95

Rapscallion

BugByte

£6.95

Automania

Microgen

£5.90

Strip Poker

US Gold

C64

£9.95

—

Son of Blagger

Alligata

C64

£7.95

Top Ten over £1,000

Top Ten up to £1,000

MACHINE

PRICE

DISTRIBUTOR

► 1

IBM PC

£2,390

IBM

► 2

Apricot

£1,760

ACT

▲ 3

Televideo TS1603

£2,640

▼ 4

Compaq

£1,960

Compaq

▼ 5

Apple III

£2,755

Apple

▲ 6

Sirius

£2,525

ACT

▼ 7

Wang Professional

£3,076

Wang

▲ 8

—

HP 85

£1,917

▲ 9

NCR Decision Mate V

£1,984

NCR

▼ 10

Kaypro

£1,604

Kaypro

MACHINE

PRICE

DISTRIBUTOR

► 1

Spectrum

£99

Sinclair

► 2

Commodore 64

£199

CBM

▲ 3

Electron

£199

Acorn

▲ 4

Amstrad

£349

Amstrad

▼ 5

BBC B

£399

Acorn

▼ 6

Vic 20

£140

CBM

▲ 7

Amstrad

£229

Amstrad

▲ 8

Atari 800XL

£199

Atari

▼ 9

Memotech

£199

Memotech

▼ 10

Oric

£99

Oric

These charts are compiled from both independent and multiple sources across the nation They reflect what's happening in high streets
during the week up tc September 6. The games chart is updated every week
Neither mail order nor deposit-only orders are included in these listings The prices quoted are for the no-frills models and include VAT
Information for the top-selling micros is culled from retailers and dealers throughout the country and is updated every month.

PCN Charts are compiled exclusively for us by RAM/C, who can be contacted on 01 -892 6596

Amstrad’s new
CPC464

conies withplenty
of free plugs.

Y ou may have noticed that the press
has got very excited about our new com-
puter system.

And rightly so.

Because the new CPC464 comes
complete with itsowngreen screen
VDU orcolourmonitor, built-in cassette
data recorder, 64K of RAM, 32K of
ROM , typewriter style keyboard and a
very fast extended BASIC.

Whenyouconsiderthatthecomplete
computer system including green
screen VDU and cassette data recorder
will only set you back £239, that ’s plenty
to get excited about.

Y ou can use the green screen version
of theCPC464 withacolourTVbycon-

CPC464 green screen VDU (GT64)

necting the optional power supply and
modulator (MP-1).

“I think the Amstrad
will give a lot
of sleepless nights to
Sinclair, Acorn
and Commodore...”

POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY

Other micros can’t get anywhere near
the CPC464’s memory for the price.
Over 42K is available to users, thanks to
the implementation of ROM overlay
techniques.

Sophisticated and complex programs
are easily accommodated.

And the CPC464 offers you high
resolution graphics, 80 column text
display, up to8 text windows, a graphics
window and a palette of 27 colours.

“The CPC464...
in two boxes and one
lead includes a list
of features that would
shame a hybrid
of the major machines.”

PERSONAL COMPUTER WORLD

One of the most obvious is the quality
of the on-screen graphics. Quite simply,
the CPC464 beats the micro/domestic
TV combination out of sight.

That’sbecauseourmonitordrives
eachcolouronthescreendirectlyfrom
thecomputer. Nothinggetsinthewayof
the best possible picture. And you won’t
have tuning problems, either.

There’s plenty of interest for music
lovers when the 3- voice, 7-octave stereo
output is fed through a hi-fi amplifier
and speakers.

“The Amstrad is
a powerful, fast machine,
with plenty of memory,
easy to program...”

PERSONALCQMPUTER WORLD

A fast growing range of Amsoft
programs is already available.

The high quality software takes full

advantage of the CPC464’s high
specification and s peedloadin g capa-
bility. Which means even complex
programs can be loaded quickly.

Arcadegames, educational programs
and business applications are all
designed toutilisetheCPC464’sim-
pressive graphics, sound and proces-
sing abilities.

Amstrad. User Club.

Join the Club.

Whetheryou’reagamesfanaticor
interested incommercialapplications,
you’ll want to sign on.

Members enjoy immediate benefits

AMSTRAD

CPC 464

REGISTERED NAME
EXPIRY DATE

Y)» IMSSimiU SH MtWaUWIfiCADCTXASFOtTUiety I

like the privilege card, Club binder,
regular magazine, competitions for
valuable prizesand contact with other
Amstrad users.

“The Amstrad machine
provides a lot
of other features for a
very low price.”

GUARDIAN

At Amstrad, we’re constantly look-
ingtothefuture. That’s why the
CPC464 has a built-in parallel printer in-
terface. A low cost optional disk drive
system includingCP/M * (with the op-
tion to access 3000 programs) and
LOGO. A joystick port. And the virtu-
ally unlimited potential of the Z80 data
bus with sideways ROM support.

With so many free plugs from
thepress, it’slittlewonderthe
CPC464 only needs one.

for only £199.95.

BOOTS COMET Dixons

Menzies RUMBELOWS

Trade mark Digital Research

ONE GREAT IDEA AFTER ANOTHER

| Tell me more about the outstanding qualities of CPC464 complete computer

I system. Please send literature right away. p^ N1

I NAME

j ADDRESS

I POSTCODE 1

3 ^ a

•t ad Consumer Electronics pic. Brentwood House. 169 King's Road,
j Brentwood, Essex CM14 4EF. Tel: Brentwood (0277) 228888.

LETS TALK

BUSINESS

AT COMDEX/EUROPE ’84

The only exhibition exclusively for
computer manufacturers from around the world
and resellers from all of Europe.

• tf you are in business
as a:-Systemshouse

- Value adder

- Distributor

- Retailer

- Dealer

- Office-machine Dealer

- Office-product Dealer

- Volume buyer

- Systems Integrator

- Manufacturers
Representative

• Comdex/Europe ’84 is your
best opportunity to establish
valuable business relationships
with those who make products
you can sell profitably.
Representatives of leading and
innovative producers of
computers and related products
are ready to talk with you about
how you can expand your
business by selling their products.

• A group of conference sessions, Plan now to attend what can

which discuss industry trends be the most productive event of

and how to enhance the profit- your business year,
ability of your business, will
also be offered.

COffliDIM/EIIIIOPE >84

29 October - 1 November 1984

RAI Exhibition Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

For more information complete coupon.

Yes I’d would like more information about COMDEX/EUROPE ’84

□ I am interested in exhibiting

□ I am interested in attending

Name Title

Company

Address

City Country

Telephone

Return to: COMDEX/EUROPE, Rivierstaete, Amsteldijk 166, 1079 LH AMSTERDAM,
The Netherlands. Tel. (31)20-460201. Tlx. 12358 rface nl. Telefax: (31)20461634.

MICROWAVES

More hints and tips from our readers to make programming a little easier.

R Randhawa,
Worley.

W Midlands.

You all know the feeling: after
hours, days or even w eeks spent
on a particular problem you
suddenly see the answer. Or on
one of those late-night expedi-
tions through the memory map
you find some undiscovered
feature. Well don't keep it to
yourself — send it here. We pay
£5 for every tip and routine
printed and £25 for a genuine
Megawave.

Send your contributions to:
Microwaves, PCS', 62 Oxford
Street, London WIA 2HG.

Simple Amstrad
sound effects

The Amstrad CPC 464 compu-
ter has some advance sound and
envelope commands which
some users may find hard to
use. To remedy this I have
written some basic sound
effects which can be incorpo-
rated into users' programs.
Alarm ent

-1.20.4,1.20, -4,1

SOUND

1.160,800.12,0.1
F.NV 1.1,14,1,7. -2.4
SOUND 1 .0,

- 1 , 0 . 1 , 0,6

env 2,1,14,1,14.

- 1.20

sound 1,140, -1,0,2
ENT -2.6. -1,1, 1.6,1

SOUND

1.200,400.14,0,2

Drum

Beat

Fading

tone

CFO

Machine code tip
on the Spectrum

Readers who program in
machine code on the Spectrum
may be interested in the follow-
ing tip. When the usr com-
mand is used . both the zero and
carry flags are reset to zero and
the BC register pair holds the
start address of the code to be
executed.

The BC register value has an
obvious use, that of relocating
machine code. It is easy to
prove that BC holds the address
called by using poke 2 sooo, 2 oi (ie
ret) and then print usr 23ooo.
This will print 25(X)0, that is,
whatever is in BC is printed.

The reset carry flag can also
be useful since it allows the
machine code to distinguish
between a call to the first byte or
a call to the second byte of the
program. For example:

LABELOLD SCF
LABELNEW NOP

JR C.STARTOLD
STARTNEW etC
RET

STARTOLD etC

What will happen is that a call
made to the First byte of the
above program causes the
machine code from startoi.d
to execute, since the carry flag
has been set with SCF. When
labelnew is called, the carry
flag is zero on entry and does
not become set by the nop.

hence jr,c is ignored and the bered. The second routine
code from startnew is ex- simply runs from the first
ecuted. address plus one.

This provides a way of cutting 7" P Crispn,
down on the number of addres- Southampton.
ses that need to be remem- Hampshire.

Charting a course in Amstrad’s memory

In order to write a program for the Amstrad CPC 464 to get a
screen dump you need to know how the screen is memory
mapped.

This is very complicated for the modes 0 and I because, when
the screen is poked, not only are pixels illuminated by the same
address poked determines the ink used. They are not separately
mapped.

If you are only interested in the 80-column mode this is a little
less complicated. The first important address is 49152. Poke this
with 255 and a short bar 8 pixels long will appear on the screen top
left. Now poke -WI52 with 0 and the bar is extinguished. The eight
pixels are configured exactly the same as a line of user defined
graphics and what you get depends on the number from 0 to 255
poked to the address.

Poking the next number. 49153, with 255. does not — as one
might expect — produce a second bar immediately below the
First. Instead, the line produced is a continuation of the last line
towards the right. The numbers 49152 to 51151 denote the top
lines of each character position. This is a total of 2000 positions, ie
25 lines by 80 columns.

You would expect poKing51 152 with 255 would produce a line
in the second line of the First character, but this is not so. There is,
in fact, a gap of 49 before we come to the next line: 51200 is the
number you want.

Henceforth, everything is as you might expect. Addresses
51200 to 53199 deFine the second lines (from the top) in the next
2000 character positions. A jump of 49 — 53248 (or 2048 on the
second line of the first character position) — brings us to the third
line of the First screen character.

Below is a short program to fill the screen line by line, which
includes all the useful starts and ends.

David Muir,

Bourne End, Bucks

50 REM

60 REM program to demonstrate

screen memory mapping on Amstrad

Keeping tabs on your Oric variables

As the Oric Atmos recognizes only the First two characters of a
variable name, it is useful to know what has been used so far.
especially on long programs.

This short routine uses no variables itself so will not add to the
list it produces.

It may be joined onto the end of any Basic program, and lists
out all the run-time variables used so far. The length of the routine
is less than 250 bytes so should not give any ‘out of memory error'
even when used with a large program.

The routine is run by a goto <. 3992 , as run would clear all
variables in memory.

D Wieckowski,

Burnham, Berks.

63992 DOK£(0),DEEK(#9C)

63993 PRINTCHR2(PEEK(DEEK(0) ) ) ;CHR2(PEEK( UDEEK(0) ) ) ;

63994 IFPEEK(DEEK(0))>128THENPRINT'*";

63995 IFPEEK(DEEK(0) )<128ANDPEEK( 1+D£EK(0) )=>128THEN
PRINT’*";

63996 IFDEEK(0)=>DEEK(4T9E)ANDreEK(DE£K(0) )>32THEN
PRINT' dim"; :GOT063998

63997 PRINT :DOKE(0) , (7+DEEK(0) ) :GOT063999

63998 PRINT :DOK£(0) , (DEEK(0)+DEEK(2+DEEK(0) ) )

63999 I FDEEK ( 0 )<DEEK (»A0 ) THENGOTO63993ELSESTOP

70 REM in dO-coiumn mode
80 REM

90 MODE 2: CLS

100 FOR i=49132 TO 51 151 : POKE
1 ,255s NEXT: REM top lines
200 FOR 1=51200 TO 53 199: POKE
i, 255: NEXT: REM second line
300 FOR i =53248 TO 55247: POKE
1 , 255: NEXT : REM third line
400 FOR 1=55296 TO 57295: POKE
i , 253: NEXT : REM fourth line
500 f-uR 1=57345 TO 59344: POKE
& , 255 1 NEXT t REM fifth line
600 FOR 1=59393 TO 61392: POKE
1 ,255:NEXT:REM sixth line
700 FOR 1=61441 TO 63440: POKE
i , 255: NEXT : REM seventh line
800 FOR 1=63489 TO 65488: POKE
i , 255: NEXT: REM eighth line
900 GOTO 900: REM press escape
twice to break into loop

PCN SEPTEMBER 15 1984

READOUT

More books on getting the best out of your micro. Our reviewers tell you if the claim is justified.

The Micronet Handbook’ by
Barbara Hickford, published by
PCW/Century at £6.95
(paperback, 105 pages).

It really gets up my nose when
people talk about Micronet
when they mean Prestel. This
book compounds the error by
lumping in teletext (Ceefax,
Oracle . etc) under the Micronet
name as though everything else
involved with videotex was
merely peripheral to it.

Micronet is only a small part
of the wide and wonderful
world of Prestel and it is not the
only information service on
Prestel that caters for micro
users.

Indeed, one of the deficien-
cies of this book is the omission
of any reference whatsoever to
Viewfax. another database on
Prestel Microcomputing that in
some respects is considered as
good as or better than Mic-
ronet.

The author does offer a quick
overview of the rest of Prestel
but it is a cursory examination
that does not do justice to the
variety of services that are
available and may not be of
interest to someone with a
micro and appropriate modem.

Perhaps one should not com-
plain too much of the bias in the
book as the author wrote it with
the cooperation of the Micronet
staff who have an obvious axe to
grind.

David Babsky. Micronet’s
Editor, warns in a foreword to
the book that some of the
information on Prestel page
numbers and services offered
may be out of date. Unfortu-
nately. he is right. Information
is out of date and hopelessly so
in some cases.

At £6.95 for 105 pages this

book is grossly overpriced for
what is little more than a
publicity booklet for Micronet.

It is difficult to see who the
book is aimed at unless, of
course, the book will be given
away free to everyone who
parts with good money to
become a subscriber to Mic-
ronet. RB

The Personal Computer
Handbook’ by Peter Rodwell,
published by Doriing Kindersley at
£8.95 (paperback, 208 pages).

As Christmas approaches
you're probably thinking about
buying a micro as a present —
but which one? That's where a
book like The Personal Compu-
ter Handbook is supposed to
step in.

In 208 pages. Peter Rodwell
takes you inside a computer and
finishes up with a round-up of
the different machines. Each
chapter is divided into modules
with sub-headings which makes
it easy for you to find your way
around the book.

Written in aclear informative
style, a newcomer to the micro
arena will find this paperback a
pleasure to read. With clear
labelled diagrams and photo-
graphs, you learn what a com-
puter is, how to set up the
necessary equipment . how the
computer works plus bits and
pieces on add-ons and software .

One of the major problems
with a book of this type is that it
becomes out-of-date so quick-
ly. The industry moves at such a
pace that it’s virtually impossi-
ble to list all the machines
available at one time. Not only
that, but recently there’s been a
spate of bankruptcy among
manufacturers, so that some
machines no longer exist when
a book is finally published.

At £8.95 this handbook
seems a bit expensive as an
initial outlay in deciding what
computertobuy. Butasastartit

offers the layperson a wealth of
information in a condensed
form. SG

‘Commodore 64 Sound &
Graphics’ by Peter Falconer,
published by Melbourne House at
£6.95 (paperback, 157 pages).

We live in times of increasing
sophistication in the computer
world — hardware, software
and peripherals are all growing
closer to our ideals. The same
also applies to computer books.
While the program listings for-
mat. the barely helpful sub-
routines format and the rewrit-
ten manual format appear with
monotonous regularity, a brave
new world of books is dawning.

Among these new-style titles
is this one from Melbourne
House. Yes, there are listings,
yes there are explanations but.
by God, it’s practical. You
might actually want to use this
book.

Everyone knows you can’t
sell a game written in Basic, but
everyone also knows that writ-
ing long machine code prog-
rams is akin to do-it-yourself
dentistry. In that context Peter
Falconer's book is to be wel-
comed with open arms.

Here in one source is a
collection of ready-to-run
routines that take much of the
pain out of writing machine
code games. If you’ve ever
wanted superfast fine scrolling,
or those stunning soundtrack
effects, or interrupt-driven
graphics it’s all here.

The format of the book has
much to recommend it — Mr
Falconer starts with a game
written in Basic and then intro-
duces the necessary machine
code routines to give it some
speed and class.

In addition, you’ll also find a
collection of utilities that can be

applied to any game or program
including a faster interrupt
scheduler that makes back-
ground music and windowing
easy (well, relatively).

Have no illusions, machine
code programming is never as
easy as Basic no matter how
many utilities, aids or attempts
you have, but it isn’t as hard
as many people assume. PW

The Adventurer’s Companion' by
Mike and PeterGerrard, published
by Duckworth at £3.95
(paperback, 118 pages).

Like the pioneersof the original
wild west (before cowboys and
settlers), the intrepid brothers
Gerrard have forged ahead into
unknown territory and opened
the way for us to follow.

Or so they would have us
believe. I can’t sec any but the
laziest adventure letting some-
one else do their exploring.

This book won’t be much of a
companion unless you happen
to be playing The Hobbit,
Colossal Cave Adventure,
Adventureland or Pirate
Adventure, because these are
the only adventures covered.
However, they are covered in
great detail.

Each chapter starts with an
alphabetical list of the ‘prob-
lems’ encountered in each
game. The solutions are also
given alphabetically rather than
chronologically to prevent the
reader from simply working
straight through the game with
the book. Maps are provided in
the Appendix for those who are
lost or unsure of what lies
beyond.

For the four games discussed
the subject is well presented
and useful. But I certainly won’t
be spending money on this one.

PCN SEPTEMBER 15 1984

Make your micro smile -
with SAMS computing books

This month’s selection of books from SAMS will keep you
and your micro happy for hours

BASIC on the Atari for Kids

Wyner and Wyner

An easy-to-follow instruction course in BASIC
programming, using simple vocabulary and many
practical exercises.

224 pages/ISBN 0 672 22257 4/E9.95

The Toolkit Series: Atari edition

Buchholz and Ousthimer

Part of a popular series teaching you the fast and

efficient method of programming with modular

subroutines.

224 pages/ISBN 0 672 2231 1 2/E5.95

I APPLE I

88 Apple LOGO Programs

Waite, Martin and Martin

88 fully tested business, educational and fun programs
to help you learn structured programming and LOGO
syntax fast!

Book: 336 pages/ISBN 0 672 22343 0/E1 4.50
Book with program disc: ISBN 0 672 26224 X
£26.50 + VAT

Assembly Cookbook for the Apple ll/lle

Don Lancaster

A complete guide to using assembly language for
writing successful personal and commercial programs.
368 pages/ISBN 0 672 22331 7/£19.50

IBMl

ABPC - A Kid’s Guide to the IBM PC

Buckholtz and Buckholtz
Uses examples, programs, games, and easy to
understand language in teaching 7 to 14 year olds how
to use the IBM PC.

1 60 pages/ISBN 0 672 22227 2/£1 1 .95

Graphics and Sounds on the IBM PC

Tim Knight

Shows you how to generate a wealth of full-colour
graphics and impressive sounds with your IBM PC.

128 pages/ISBN 0 672 22172 1/E7.95

IBM PC for Kids from 8 to 80

Zabinski and Short

An enjoyable and easy to follow book of instructions to
help you to quickly begin writing your own programs.

208 pages/ISBN 0 672 22337 6/El 4.50

[GENERAL I

Kid Powered Graphics

David Fiday

A simple, direct and jargon-free approach to
programming low-resolution graphics.

224 pages/ISBN 0 672 22229 9/E7.95

Available from all good booksellers. SAMS books are
distributed In the UK by Pitman Publishing Ltd, 128
Long Acre, London WC2E 9 AN. For further details,
contact Helen Kitson on 01 379 7383.

PCN SEPTEMBER 15 1984

Pitman

SPECTRUM GAME

Frogger fans can hop again in some web-foot frog-marched fun from G Creasey.

Don’t bank on it

I t had been a long day for Security
Operative Winston Asimov. Stuck out-
side the Intergalact ic Megabank , pacing
back and forth, with nothing to talk to but
the security robots.

‘Alio . . . alio . . . alio. I . . . should . . .
cocoa . . . John,' one grated metalically as
it whirred past. ‘User-friendly indeed,’
muttered Winston, ‘Artificial flipping
intelligence!' But wait — he could hear
sirens in the distance — there was some sort
of commotion at the other side of the
M6000 Southampton to New York North
Arterial by-pass.

Peering through the streams of traffic
Winston could see a small figure bobbing
and weaving across the highway — a bank
robber! The figure was getting closer,
coming towards him. A security robot
grunted ‘you're . . . nicked . . . John’ and
lunged at the robber, but missed. Winston
saw the figure’s face clearly now — ‘Good
grief,' he thought . ‘it’s got a head on it like a
frog. .’

And then eveijlhing went black. . .
Bank Raid casts you as Ronnie Robber.
You and your assistants have accidentally
parked your getaway vehicle on the wrong
side of the M6000 Southampton to New
York North Arterial by-pass, and as the
Intergalactic Megabank shuts in ten mi-
nutes you don't really have enough time to
drive 500 miles to the nearest service area
and double back.

Fortunately, you used to play a game
called Frogger back in the Twentieth
Century, and you reckon you remember
enough of the tactics to be able to dodge
your way across the highway and get to the
bank . Praying that there won't be a qu eue.
you dive into the stream of traffic. Q3

Program notes

30 Sets up the variables z,x,v and w
which are used with the machine
code pixel scroll routine, then
pokes in the data for the scroll
routine (lines 80- 100).

120-160 Set up the user defined graphics
for the traffic , guards and Ron nie
Robber.

170 Sets up the variables for the main
program loop. The coordinates
of Ronnie's start position are a,b.

180 Prints score line.

190-250 Print the traffic and motorway
lanes.

280-350 Main loop. Line 290checkstosee
if you've hit anything, while 330
and 340 move Ronnie up and
sideways respectively.

360-390 The you’re dead routine. 370
checks the lives you have left.

420 High score checking routine.

450-480 Print instructions.

PCN SEPTEMBER 15 19M

SPECTRUM GAME

10 REM *BANK RAID*

s rs ..=«-= l«

• let w-30068: LET hs-0: PAPER 0: INK 7.

RIGHT i: BORDER 0: CLS : GO TO 80

40 POKE w,35 LET j-USR x: POKE w.35 LET
j-USR *: POKE v , 3S LET j -USR 2

30 POKE w,7 5 LET j-USR x: «**"•*• ' L *T
j-USR x: POKE «,?! LET j-USR *5 POKE v.9.

LET j-USR *: POKE v,95 LET j-USR 2

1 0 POKE N.ll! LET j-USR xl POKE v,135 LE
T j — USR 2 1 POKE v, 13: LET j-USR 2 : POKE w,

] 7 ‘ : cl" ;.osr PO« -,.7! LET J.USR «

11 "store FOR .-9»I. TO

D POKE n,.5 NEXT n: FOR n-30070 TO 3012

ii "i!;” a - ■37.179,283,294.28

L3:as s:S:a:ar£wr-2;

8,201,38, 148, 193,71,14,233,203,170,34,201

120 RESTORE 4 ^: FOR n-USR "a* TO USR *q'

♦7; READ .5 POKE n,«: NEXT n

130 DATA 24,60,60,24.126,24,36,36,0,3^4
.... 33 43 12.0,224,48,24,232,132,180.48,0,

0 ’l40 DATA 12,4,60,204,233,36,214,198,48,32

12 9 ! 2S9 M. 07 99,13,17,33.233.233,233.

’ U 233 . 2 3 lj . 233 , 233 , 235 , 234 , 253 , 28

l 3 i DATA 233,233,233,233,233,127,233^36,^

40 136 132,233,233,233,231,36,36,36, 16, 1Z4

Ti 73, 73. 127. 73,89

’ 160 DATA 193,233,90,102,102,90,233,193,23
_ ?is 193 193,193,193,233,253,233,219,219,

l;”I;i”.i”i9,.i7,..«,2»R,9..2.R.» ;!; 9

170 LET r — 05 LET 1-35 LET »-05 LET A 1 •

L !l0 b pllNT AT 0,0. INK 71 PAPER II' SCORE

“190 prInt at i?” E iSk 1 ,-ppppp pppppp PPP

PPP PPPPPP PPPPP*

p r T *: .t-.— «

0000 00000 00000 *

210 PRINT AT 7,01 INK 31 H M
„ M M M MAT 9,0. INK 7.' L L

220 L pRINT L iT 11,01 INK 3.' 00000 OOOO

O OOOOO ^OOOOO ' I AT 13,0. INK 0, PAPER 4*

» AT IS* 05 *

250 _ PRINT _ AT 15,0. INK 6,- DE O G
OE G DEMAT 17,0. INK 3. F

260 FOR n- 19 TO 2oI PRINT AT n,«

"“EE/II PR, NT AT 21.01 PAPER 2> "NK 7. ’

270 Jet".,-.: leJ bt-b! pJint ink 7. pare

.00l.(RND»20.T30: PRINT INK 81 PAPER 8 . AT

*278 " IF* SCREEN* "..b,.<>- * THEN 80 TO 96

" 3 00 IF .1-1 THEN IF bl-3 OR bl-12 OR bl-1
9 OR b 1—26 THEN GO TO 390
310 IF Al-1 THEN GO TO 360

3 20 PRINT AT al.bl. PAPER 8. INK 8. A . L
THEN let ..-.1-2= LET .

"3A0*LET E b"-blMiNKET0--2- AND bI<3Il-(INK
EY*-*1* AND bl>0>

III ?0R T n-? 8 ?0 305 PRINT AT Al.bl. OVER 1
, “hk S.-A-: BEEP . 005, n/25 BEEP . 001 .RND*

6 3;0 NE BEEp n i.-3l: !eT 1 — I ” 1 5 PRINT AT 0,29,
P^PER M INK 7,,5 IF 1-0 THEN GO TO 420
380 LET .-195 LET b-135 00 TO 270
390 PRINT AT A, b. INK 8. " • p ° . A ..

• FOR m— 0 TO 65 PRINT AT Al.bl, INK m! A .

;!”l505 LET .-19: LET b-13: GO TO 180
420 FOR n-1 TO 100: NEXT n5 FOR n--10 TO
-20® BEEP -3,n: NEXT n5 IF A>h. THEN LET h
_ BEEP .03,10: BEEP .03,20: BEEP • 05 •

: PRINT *0. FLASH 1,'A NEW HIGH SCORE '...

430 FOR n-1 TO 300: NEXT n , TNK

440 BEEP .1.10S CLS : PRINT PAPER 2, INK
7 , AT 0,0." BANK RAID

*450 PRINT AT 3,0. INK «.'You, R°nni. Robb
er, .nd your ...l.t.nt., -• *te.l 1

si. money 4ro* the City Bank.

460 PRINT ••• INK 31 -Unfortun.tely, to d
tSl- you mu.t cro.A the ro.d,.voidth.

rlTTSIrS”*’ ^ rfStloMc Solti.

0-FORWARD* . ppp

480 PRINT AT 21,0. PAPER . INK 71 P « E
SS ANY KEY TO PLAY GAME “ !

.03,105 BEEP .03.13: CLS 5 GO TO 120

HI*

,,0. INK 01

230 LET
QQQM INK 25 PRINT

" qq«QQQQQQQQQQQQG0Q 9QQQQQQQQQQ
>: PRINT AT 2,0. *• « AT 4.0«a*«AT

QQB : INK ^

6,0»a*«AT 8,0. A* , AT 10, 0. A*, AT 12,0. A*

PCN SEPTEMBER IS 19*4

Rebalance this sh

The BBC Micro can now give an
astonishing new account of itself.

Because with Acomsofts new 16k
ViewSheet ROM. it develops a head for
figures which can save you a vast amount
of arduous brainwork.

Imagine, for instance, that you had to
make several adjustments to a balance
sheet

If you made those adjustments on
V iewSheet. it would revise the balance
automatically in a split second.

Or imagine that you had to add 15%
VAT to every figure on a price list contain-
ing 500 items.

ViewSheet can add the tax to each and
even one of those items simultaneously.
And once again, in virtually a second.

\s simple as pencil and paper.

ViewSheet is a computer-based
spreadsheet, the figure processing
version of a word processor.

With 255 columns in width and
255 rows in depth, its also one of the
largest spreadsheets on the market.

Originating the sheet is as easv as
originating an ordinary worksheet with
pencil and paper.

Because ViewSheet comes w ith an
easy-to- follow reference card. —

It enables even the most i nexperienced
users to feed all the data they need to use.
and store on disc or cassette, into the BBC
Micro. |

\ou can nominate headings and sub-
headings. And you can create barcharts to j
display figures graphically.

Icn windows for perfect vision.

The sheer size of ViewSheet makes J
it impossible for the whole sheet to be
visible on the monitor at once.

Thats w hy ViewSheet has ten windows,
enabling you to see up to ten different
sections of the sheet at anv one time.

You can summon the windows onto i

eet in one second.

the screen at the press of a key.

You can cross-reference sections, or
even reposition them on the sheet, when-
ever you need to.

And you can print them out individ-
ually, as well as all together.

The possibilities are virtually endless.

By creating special disc files from
ViewSheet, you can link two or more
spreadsheets together.This meansyou can
build models much bigger than the
BBC Micro’s considerable memory.

ViewSheet is also com pat ible wi t h
Acomsoft’s View word-processing
package. This enables you to pro-
duce 1 reports and documents which
combine text and figures.

In addition, you can use
ViewSheet in
any screen
mode.

making the most of the BBC Micro's
potential. And if you use it w ith the 6502
second processor, you’ll have no less than
30K of workspace in any mode*.

For only £59.80.

von too can have figures like this.

The ViewSheet ROM can be fitted bv
your BBC Micro dealer in less than three
minutes. And with its straightforward
function

ence card, it'll soon have you
juggling figures at lightning
speed.

Indeed, at only £50.80. its
an i nvaluable asset for anyone i nvolved
in professional or personal finance,

forecasts, formulae and
analysis.

\ iewShert's operations and lunetionsin brief.

The operations supported by ViewSheet are:
addition, suhtraetion. in ultiplieat ion. division, exponen-
tation and bracketed operations.

\nd the functions supported are: ABS, ACS. ASM,
SIN. SGN. R \l>, ATN. COS. DKG, EXP. INT. I N.
LOG. PI.SQR.TXN. MIN. \\ KR AGE. M \\. CHOOSE,
OOkUP.GOL IK READ. ROVt and RITE.

4C0RNSSFT

clock, all notes sound lower than usual,
while the 1.79MHz clock makes them
sound much higher. You can only clock
channels one and three with the 1.79MHz
clock (channels 0 and 2 in Basic), hut all
channels may be clocked with the 15KHz
clock.

Program 1 demonstrates the notes
available at each clock rate.

Special effects

If you select code number 128 a nine-bit
poly will be used in place of a 17-bit poly.
‘Polys’, or polynomials, are used for noise
generation. There are three polys normal-
ly, 4. 5 and 17 bits long.

If you use a distortion value other than 10
or 14 in a sound statement then you are,
whether you know it or not, using the poly
counters. The 17-bit poly has no apparent
repetition in the sound produced, whereas

TABLE 2: Important memory locations

Name

Address

Purpose

AUDF1

53760

Sets pitch forchannelone

AUDC1

53761

Sets volume and distortion for channel one

AUDF2

53762

Sets pitch for channel two

AUDC2

53763

Sets volume and distortion for channel two

AUDF3

53764

Sets pitch for channel three

AUDC3

53765

Sets volume and distortion for channel three

AUDF4

53766

Sets pitch for channel four

AUDC4

53767

Sets volume and distortion for channel four

AUDCTL

53768

Selects special sound functions (see Table 1 )

Table 1: Special sound functions
Code number purpose

128 Selects9-bitpolyinplaceof

17-bit poly

64 Clock channel one with

1.79MHz

32 Clock channel three with

1.79MHz

16 Joinchannelsoneandtwo

(nine octaves)

8 Join channels three and four

(nine octaves)

4 Insert high pass filter in

channel one , regulated by
channel three

2 Insert high pass filter in

channel two, regulated by
channel four

1 Use 15KHzclock

0 Revert to normal functions

There’s more to Atari sound than meets the ear. Frank O’Dwyer shows you how it’s done.

SOUND CHAN.PITCH .DISTORT, VOLUME
Then we could write:

POKE 5376U+CHAN*2, PITCH: POKE 53761
+CHAN*2, DISTORT* 16+VOL

Unlike the sound command, however,
there is no need to specify pitch, volume,
and distortion together. Suppose you only
want to vary the pitch of a note, having
already set the volume and distortion. You
could write:

POKE 53761,168: FOR PITCH=0 TO 255: POKE
53760, pitch: next pitch
This will run more quickly than the
equivalent Basic:

FOR P!TCH=0 to 25s:sound o, PITCH,
10,8: NEXT PITCH

All the extra functions are accessed by
poKEing location 53768, sometimes refer-
red to as AUDCTL or ‘Audio Control’.
The values to poke here are summarised in
Table 1. For example, if you want a high
pass filter on channel two you poke a 2 here
(poke 53768,2).

If you want to select more than one
option . simply add up the code numbers for
each option and poke the result. For
example, to select a high pass filter on
channel one (code number 4) and a
1.79MHz clock on channel one also (code
number 64), you would write poke

53768,64 + 4, Or JUSt POKE 53768,68.

Now you know how to select sound
functions, what do they mean?

Clocks

There are three clocks available, 15KHz,
64KHz (normal) and 1.79MHz (the full
speed of the 6502 processor). The Basic
command sound uses the 64KHz clock to
produce notes. If you select the 15KHz

Atari tunes

T here is more to the Atari sound system
than Basic's sound command. For
instance, two channels may be com-
bined to give a nine octave range instead of
the normal five octaves. It is also possible
to raise or lower the range available to each
channel selectively so that channel
one, for instance, plays in a very high reg-
ister while channels two to four play in a
low register. In addition, special effects
may be achieved by filtering channels or
altering the way in which distortion is
arrived at.

As you might expect , all this power must
be accessed using pukes, since there are no
Basic commands to use the extra facilities.
Unfortunately, as soon as you reconfigure
the sound system using a poke, the sound
command becomes obsolete and you must
use poke for this too. This is because the
sound command will reconfigure the
system back to normal. An equivalent
poke to the sound command is clearly the
first thing required. Actually it should be
two pokes; say we want to convert the
command:

KN SEPTEMBER 15 1984

ATARI SOUND

◄ 25

the shorter polys produce audible repeti-
tion. So selecting the 9-bit poly makes the
pattern in the sound more evident. The
distortion values that use the 9/17-bit poly
are 0 and 8. Only these modes will be
affected by selection of the 9-bit poly.
Program 2 shows the effect in action.

Other effects are possible by using a
high-pass filter on either channel one or
two. High pass filters only allow frequen-
cies (or notes) higher than a particular
value to pass through. On the Atari, these
values are governed by the notes being
played by channels three and four respec-
tively. It is normal to set the distortion of

both channels to the same value and then to
experiment with the pitch values to achieve
special effects, since the results are very
unpredictable. Try Program 3 to ‘get an
idea of what the high pass filter does. ,

A nine-octave range can be achieved by
joining two channels to form one. For
example, you could join channels one and
two. The disadvantage is that you then
have less channels to work with, but this is
rarely a problem since most programs do
not use more than two channels for sound.
To set the pitch on the nine-octave channel
you need to use two pokes instead of one.
If you poke the pitch register of the first

channel you make a fine adjustment in the
pitch, while the second channel's pitch
register makes a coarse adjustment.

Program 4 allows you to use a joystick to
adjust the pitch of a nine-octave channel.
Move the "joystick up to raise the pitch and
down to lower it. Press the trigger to make
fine adjustments.

Note that the program also sets the clock
to l.79MHr to get a more useful
nine-octave range. If you were to use the
normal clock or the ISKHz clock you
would be able to take the pitch so low that
the note would lose its musical qualit y and
just consist of infrequent clicks. CT

■ Effect of clock changes

10 REM PROGRAM TO DEMONSTRATE AVAILABLE NOTES WITH
19KHZ , 64KHZ AND 1 . 79MHZ CLOCKS

20 GRAPHICS 0: POKE 732,1! SOUND 0,0, 0,0: REM TURN
OFF CURSOR AND SOUND

30 POSITION 14,3! PRINT ‘NORMAL TONES (64KHZ
CLOCK)*! GOSUB 1000: REM TRY ALL PITCHES
40 POKE 33768,11 REM USE ISKHZ CLOCK
30 PRINT ‘LOW TONES I ISKHZ CLOCK) *1 GOSUB 1000S
REM TRY ALL PITCHES

60 POKE 33768,64! REM USE 1 . 79MHZ CLOCK ON CHANNEL
ONE

70 PRINT ‘HIGH TONES ( 1 . 79MHZ CLOCK) "! GOSUB 1000:

REM TRY ALL PITCHES

80 END! REM TURN OPF SOUNDS

1000 POKE 33761,168! REM PURE TONE, VOLUME 8
1010 POR P-0 TO 233! POKE 33760, P: POSITION 2,3:
PRINT ‘PITCH! * 1 PI ' *11 NEXT P: SOUND 0,0, 0,0! REM

TURN OPP SOUND
1020 RETURN

Effect of 9-blt poly

10 REM PROGRAM TO DEMONSTRATE EFFECT OF 9-BIT POLY
ON DISTORTION MODES 0 I. 8
20 POKE 33760,200! REM LOU PITCH

30 GRAPHICS 0! PRINT ‘DISTORTION 0, 17-BIT POLY‘1
POKE 33768,0! POKE 33761,8: POR N-l TO 2000! NEXT
N

40 PRINT "DISTORTION 0,9-BIT POLY‘! POKE 33768,128
: POKE 33761,8: POR N-l TO 2000: NEXT N
30 PRINT ‘DISTORTION 8, 17-BIT POLY‘1 POKE 33768,0:
POKE 33761,136! POR N-l TO 2000: NEXT N
60 PRINT ‘DISTORTION 8,9-BIT POLY"! POKE 33768,128
: POKE 33761,136! FOR N-l TO 2000: NEXT N

Program 3 - High pail
10 REM PROGRAM TO DEMONSTRATE HIGH PASS FILTER ON
CHANNEL ONE

20 ORAPHICS 0! POKE 53761,168: POKE 33765,168: REM
PURE TONES

30 POKE 33760,100: POKE 33764,30: REM SET PITCHES
40 PRINT ‘NO FILTER ON SOUND': POKE 33768,0: FOR
N-l TO 2000! NEXT N

30 PRINT ‘FILTER ON SOUND*: POKE 33768,4
60 FOR N-l TO 2000! NEXT N

Nine octave range

10 REM PROGRAM USING TWO CHANNELS TO ACHIEVE NINE
OCTAVE RANGE

20 POKE 33768,80: REM JOIN CHANNELS ONE AND TWO,
AND USE 1.79MHZ CLOCK

30 POKE 33761,160! REM PURE TONE, BUT ZERO VOLUME
40 POKE 33763,168: REM PURE TONE, VOLUME 8
30 ORAPHICS 2*16! FINE-100: COARSE-40
60 PRINTR6 I ‘USE JOYSTICK TO" S PRINTR6!

“RAISE /LOWER PITCH"! PRINTR6I "HOLD TRIGGER DOWN":
PRINTM61 ‘FOR FINE ADJUSTMENTS’

70 POSITION 0,8: PRINTR6 1 "FINE: " I FINE i "!

PRINTN6I ‘COARSE: "1 COARSE I* *1

80 POKE 33760, FINE! POKE 33762, COARSE

90 S-STICKC0): T— STRIG 10) : IF S-13 THEN 90

100 ADD--1! IF S-13 THEN ADD-1

110 IF T — 0 THEN FINE-FINE "ADD

120 IF T— 1 THEN COARSE-COARSE "ADD

130 IF FINE >255 THEN FINE-233

140 IF FINE< 0 THEN FINE-0

130 IF COARSE >253 THEN COARSE-255

160 IF COARSE< 0 THEN COARSE-0

170 GOTO 70

PCN SEPTEMBER IS 1984

A FISTFUL! OF HAND-HELDS

Computers are getting smaller
every day. Stuart Cooke looks
at three micros that literally fit
in your hand.

W ith technology galloping ahead at a
rapid pace, hand-helds are getting
smaller, thinner and cheaper.

Psion and Epson have produced the
latest machines and. with the current
trend, calculators could become a thing of
the past as programmable computers take
their place . The main reason for this shift is
that these wallet-sized computers have
portable processors which can be used as a
database or to work out complicated
calculations. And many allow users to
write programs of their own.

PCN SEPTEMBER 1519*4

Psion Organiser

then searches through all the
strings stored in the EPROMs and
finds the first one that contains a
match. This is where one of the
main limitations of the Organiser
comes to light.

Supplied with the review
machine was a datapack with a
database containing a number of
restaurants in the London area.
Say you wanted to find a Chinese
restaurant: you would type in
‘Chinese’ to the Find prompt after
which the machine would list all the
Chinese restaurants in its memory.
If, however, your Chinese res-
taurant had to be in a certain area
you’d be out of luck. You can’t
search for a string using two
parameters, so you must look
through all the entries till you find
one in Wl, for example. Of course
you could always search for Wl
and then cycle through entries
looking for a Chinese one.

The main problem with the data
packs is that they are actually
EPROMs. It is very simple to store
data in them, remove them from
the machine and put it in your
pocket until you need the informa-
tion stored on it. The problems
occur when you want to delete
information. You can mark the
data as deleted but it still takes up
some of the valuable memory in
the pack. The only way to reclaim
this lost data is to erase the
EPROM.

This can be done either by
buying Psion's eraser which clears
two EPROMS at once, or send
your data pack to Psion for era-
sure, which costs you money. Of
course, erasing an EPROM wipes
out all the data held in it.

P sion, known by every computer buff
for its involvement with Sinclair
Research and its production of
software for the Spectrum and the QL, has
launched its own computer.

Psion claims the Organiser is ‘Your
personal database for vital day to day
information with the programming power
of a desktop microcomputer.’ This is
probably over generous: the Organiser
docs allow you to store and retrieve data as
with a database but the power of a desktop
is stretching it.

First impressions

The Organiser is supplied in a black pastic
case that slides over the keyboard when the
computer is not in use. It measures 14cm by
8cm, slightly smaller than the average
paperback book, and even though it does
look large it can fit quite easily into an
inside jacket pocket.

The bottom of the machine sports what
Psion calls ‘solid state drives'. These are
spaces for two slot-in program packs.
Inside the program pack is a standard
EPROM. This means it’s possible to get a
lot of storage on one drive — one 8K data
pack is supplied with the machine and you
can purchase more of these as you need
them.

The display is a 15 character LCD. When
the machine is first powered up this
displays a 24-hour real-time clock and
calendar.

Documentation

The small pocket-size manual’s 42 pages
contain all the information you need to use
the machine, and it’s all easy to find.

Chapters deal with each separate
keyword in detail. The manual for this
micro is no more complicated than one for
a simple pocket calculator.

In use

A quick examination of the machine
reveals that the keyboard is not laid out in a
standard QWERTY format but is alphabe-
tic. Great if you’ve never used a typewriter
but it leads to reciting the alphabet to
yourself if you have.

Once powered up, the clock is displayed.
Unfortunately, even though there is a ‘on’
key, there’s no ‘off. Turning the machine
off requires a minimum of three key
presses so the idea of quickly and conve-
niently looking at the time is spoilt.

Pressing the Mode key shows you all the
main functions you can use, and Enter
allows you to type data into the machine . If
you then press the Save key followed by
Execute the information typed is stored in
the machine for retrieval at will. Another
push on the Mode key reveals the word off;
now press Execute to switch off the
machine.

Calc is the next main function. This
allows the user to enter arithmetical
calculations, making the Organiser a
glorified pocket calculator.

The Find key allows you to enter a
sequence of characters, and the machine

Program packs

The Organiser has no built-in program-
ming language. If you wish to write your
own routines for use with the machines you
need to purchase one of the program packs
available. All the program packs contain a
number of new routines for the computer
such as prog which allows you to write a
program, cat which tells you what prog-
rams are stored and run which executes a
named program.

The language used on the Organiser is
one of Psion’s own design called POPL.
This appears to resemble that tried and
tested language Basic. However, POPL
has no line numbers and all gotos are
made to labels. Commands exist to print
out on the display, input characters from
the keyboard, perform loops and compare
data. It is even possible to write programs
that call other programs, passing para-
meters between them.

POPL is easy to use, though the small
display on the computer makes it difficult
to remember what you’ve typed and to edit
the programs.

Each of the program packs has a number
of routines already added to the Basic. A
science pack contains many scientific
functions and programs of use to a
scientist. The Finance pack, supplied for
review, contained programs to work out
mortgage repayments, cashflow repay-
ments etc.

As well as the programs, a number of
science and maths functions have been
added which you can use with your
programs such as SIN, COS and FAC.

The supplied pack being the finance one
doesn’t mean you can’t now write scientific
programs; it just means you don’t get the
extra programs supplied with the science
pack.

Verdict

Even when all the gripes about no ‘off
switch and the problems with the data-
packs are taken into consideration the
Organiser is still a simple to use and
convenient computer. I doubt HI be
carrying a diary or address book with me in
future.

PCN SEPTEMBER 15 19M

Casio FX-750P

◄ 29 ^|o bigger than a wallet, the Casio
FX-750P is most definitely a pocket
I ^computer.

First impressions

Most of the low-priced pocket computers
have a small amount of internal RAM with
the option of purchasing an additional
RAM pack to fit inside the machine . Not so
the latest machines coming out of the Casio
stable. The FX-750P has a couple of
•drives’ built into the front edge. These
drives are used for insertion of RAM cards,
as the machine has no internal memory of
its own.

Storage

Two types of RAM card are available for
the 750, the RC-4 gives 4K of memory
while the RC-2 gives 2K. Both types of
RAM card look exactly alike, being
slightly larger than a book of matches. The
RAM cards have their own internal battery
and so can be removed from the machine
without fear of losing the progams stored in
them.

Programs and variables are stored in a
very useful fashion. If you have two RAM
cards installed in the machine, programs
are stored in the card in slot 0 and all data is
stored in the card in slot 1. The manual
shows you how this can be used to
advantage. If, for example, you needed to
manipulate a large amount of sales data
you could install the card to hold the data in
slot 1 and have a number of different cards
for use in slot 0. These cards could hold
programs for inputting the data, sorting

the data and searching the data. The other
way of using this feature would be to have
one program which would use a number of
different sets of data stored on separate
cards.

In use

Writing programs for the FX-750P
couldn't be easier — you just program in
Basic.

The Basic supplied is a fairly standard
implementation, but there are quite a few
additional useful extras. Anyone who
requires a machine that performs statistical
calculations will not be disappointed.
Commands exist to sum data and calculate
standard deviation as well as other statistic-
al functions. Engineers are also catered for
and all the standard trigonometric func-
tions exist together with a number of
constants such as the acceleration of free
fall and the Avogadro constant to make life
easier.

A book of programs is available covering
a wide range of subjects for those without
programming experience. You just type
them in and you're away. On the other
hand, if you want to learn Basic the manual
is very good . Almost every step mentioned
is accompanied by a picture of the contents
of the display at that moment which makes
the text easy to follow and reassures you
that you are going about the latest task
corr ctly.

FA-20 interface

Keeping all your data on RAM cards is a
little dangerous, especially when the

battery needs changing. To facilitate the
storage of your programs and data onto
cassette Casio has developed the FA-20
interface.

The FA-20 is supplied in a plastic case
which takes the power supply, cassette
leads and spare RAM cards. The FX-750P
simply slots into the interface and can be
kept in position for handy storage. The
FA-20 doesn’t contain its own cassette; it
simply allows you to connect a standard
cassette recorder to your pocket computer
— so the overall package isn’t quite as
compact as it would seem.

The Basic supplied on the 750 allows you
to save all the files on a card, the current
file, all the data or just selected items of
data. This gives a very versatile storage
system which proved to be reliable, if a
little slow. However, you won’t be saving
programs onto cassette every day as all
data can be stored on the RAM cards.

As well as giving you cassette storage the
FA-20 also has a built-in thermal printer
which allows you to get listings of your
programs and output data. Again the
printer is a little on the slow side and the
text is extremely small, but it does work
well and is far cheaper than any other.

Although the FA-20 has a mains unit,
rechargeable batteries are built into the
unit and it can be used without a mains
supply.

Verdict

The FX-750P is a very handy little
machine. Write a simple memo program
and you just need to carry a number of
RAM cards instead of a diary. For
engineers, or anyone doing a number of
calculations on the move, this machine
could prove an invaluable tool. ►

PCN PRO-TEST

Casio FX-720P

■iM.iiv/.via

Conclusion

1 Whe smallest of the two machines from
I Casio is the FX-720P. This handheld
I closely resembles the FX-750 except
for the keys. However, part of the
reduction in price is due to the inclusion of
only one RAM card drive.

One function on the FX-720, not found
on the FX-750. is the Memo function. Use
of the memo bank turns your scientific
pocket computer into a portable database .

To enter data into the memo bank just go
into Memo in mode by pressing two keys.
Then simply type in your memo, be it an
address, message or anything else. Separ-
ating the fields by commas allows simple
manipulation of stored data at a later date .

To search for information . a press of the
Memo key displays record number one.
Pressing the Exe key cycles through the
rest of the files. When you find the file you
want, use the Memo key to reveal the
remainder of the file.

This method of reading a file is a bit
long-winded, so Casio has included a
search facility using a string of characters
which you input : it is very easy to use . If . for
example, you wish to search your files for
the address of Casio — you would type in
Casio and press Memo. The FX-720
searches for the first record that contains
the string casio and displays it.

Like the other Casio portable computers
you can write your own programs in Basic.

The Basic included on the FX-720 hasextra
facilities to allow you to access your memo
files from within a program. All the normal
standard Basic functions are there, includ-
ing a full set of trignometrical and scientific
functions.

Three manuals are supplied. One is an
introduction to the computer and Basic,
the second is a reference manual for the
Memo Pad and the third is a library of
programs to type in. All the manuals are
well produced and extremely easy to
understand; all responses made by the
computer are shown by diagrams of the
display. The program library covers sub-
jects as diverse as games and medicine. All
the programs are clearly documented and
even show which keys to press to run the
programs.

Even if you've never used Basic, you
should be able to use the wealth of
programs supplied in this book and you
may even learn a little about writing
programs while you're at it.

Verdict

Although it doesn't offer the storage that
the FX-750 does, this machine is still
extremely useful. Having the memo bank
installed as a feature rather than having to
write a program is convenient, whether
you want to store names and addresses or
write messages.

T hese three hand-held micros are the
shape and size of things to come.
When memory packs become larger
and cheaper, as they will, why should
anyone carry around sheaves of paper and
books when all the information could be
fitted into a pocket?

Each of the three appears to be designed
for a particular kind of user. The Psion
Organiser, for instance, would probably
not be bought by an engineer, but it does
offer a great amount of data storage. The
price, however, may put a few people off
when compared with other machines.

The FX-750 would be excellent for an
engineer, for instance. A fairly large
amount of storage is available in the two
drives and the way information can be
moved around is useful. On the other
hand, the FX-720 offers some of the
features of both machines and at a much
lower price. Granted, you can't store as
much information as on the Psion, but you
could always carry a number of the RAM
cards with you.

Perhaps the greatest advantages of the
Casio are the main dislikes of the Organis-
er. You can program in Basic and you can
carry around a number of RAM cards from
which the information can be easily altered
without returning them to the manufactur-
er or buying yet another piece of equip-
ment to wipe them . 123

SPECIFICATIONS

Casio FX-750P

Casio FA-20

Psion Organiser

Price £99.95

Price £59.95

Price £99.95 including an 8K datapack

RAM 4K RAM card supplied

16K datapack £19.25

Casio FX-720P

RAM cards

8K datapack £12.95

Price £59.95

RC-4 £35.95

Program pack £29.95

RAM 2K RAM card supplied

RC-2 £24.95

PCN SEPTEMBER 15 1984

Whipling Oaiiyu/l^eel

Low cost letter-quality printing combined with ease-of-use appealed to Mike Batham.

S mith Corona has recently released
a new range of printers aimed at the
US microcomputer market. The
Smith Corona L1000 is a daisywheel
printer designed to be the flagship of the
range (the others are all dot-matrix
printers).

The L1000 replaces Smith Corona’s
previous rock-bottom priced daisy-
wheel, the TP1. The most obvious
improvement on its predecessor is the
inclusion of both parallel and serial
interfaces.

Setting up

The printer comes in the usual large
cardboard box enveloped in large quan-
tities of styrofoam. The unpacking (and
repacking) instructions are excellent,
unlike other printers I have used that
have no unpacking instructions at all.
This time I didn’t find myself desperate-
ly hunting for the transit screws when
the carriage started making straining
noises.

The Smith Corona L1000 is built of
moulded plastic and contains several
internal foam pads intended to reduce
vibration and noise. Unfortunately this
still doesn’t stop it from sounding like a
rapidly firing machine gun without a
muffler.

Friction feed is standard on this
printer and it will take paper up to a
width of 13in. A tractor feed attachment
is available as an optional extra.

On the front panel are three switches.
The first adjusts the pitch which can be
10, 12 or 15 characters per inch. The
second is used when printing on fan-fold
paper for setting the 'top of form’,
enabling the printer to ship the requisite

number of lines depending on the paper
length. The third is a form feed and also
activates the self-test when pressed on
power up.

With its parallel and serial interfaces
the L1000 can be connected to virtually
any micro. And with the correct connect-
ing leads (which must be purchased
separately ) the printer is very easy to set
up.

The manual is straightforward and
well written with many explanatory
diagrams. Compared to the unintelligi-
ble, complex manuals that come with
many Japanese printers this is a very
welcome relief.

In use

The L1000 is fairly slow, as you would
expect of a daisywheel printer. The
maximum speed is 1 2 cps in bi-direction-
al mode. Underlining is possible, but
there are no facilities for super or
subscripts or for graphics.

The single sheet feed set-up was
almost identical to that of a typewriter
(what else do you expect from Smith
Corona?) and was simple to use and
reliable. Not a single sheet was chewed
up. The print quality was also equiva-
lent to any typewriter.

The printer ribbons are held in
squarish cassettes which simply pop out
at the touch of a button. The new one
simply snaps into place — nothing could
be simpler. Carbon ribbons are recom-
mended in the manual, but the cloth
ribbon I was provided with was more
than adequate.

The idiot-proofi ng on this pri nter even
extends to changing the daisywheels.
There is only one way they can be put on,

so mistakes are eliminated. They are a
bit stiff initially, but you can practice
with the box each daisywheel comes in
until you get the knack.

Smith Corona carries a wide range of
typefaces but, as with all daisywheels, if
you want to use italics or anything else
within a body of standard text, you have
to stop and change the wheel. It’s the
price you pay for letter quality.

The DIP switches, concealed behind a
louvre on the back of the printer, allow
you to choose the baud rate from a wide
range when using the serial interface.
Paper length and ASCII or ANSII can
also be selected.

I have only a few minor complaints
about the L1000. For one thing, the
self-test doesn't want to stop — you
actually have to turn off the power. It
also doesn’t use the entire character set
available on the wheel. The other
problem is the vibrations caused when
the printer is in action. If I didn’t have a
concrete floor I suspect the glasses would
have rattled in the cupboard.

Verdict

The L1000 is a user friendly piece of
hardware that even the most technolo-
gy-resistant people will come to terms
with. I certainly enjoyed using it, mainly
because I could simply plug it in and get
on with the job.

The price is competitive, though the
extra cost of the tractor feed may offset
any price advantage compared to, say,
the Juki 6100. However, most other
low-cost daisywheel printers ar
inferior quality.

Product Smith Corona L10U0 daisywheel
printer Price £368 inc VAT Mamifacturor Smith
Corona (Mats Smith Corona dealers
! n £$U '()•+,-. /01 23*56789: ;
ABCDEFGH l JKLMNOPQRSTUVVXYZ[ "
/ "£$%4 •()* + ,-. /01 231*56789 : •
ABCDEFGH l JKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[ "
/ "£$%& '()**,-. /0123U56789: 7
ABCDEFGH I JKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[ ••
/ "£$<14 '()*+,-. /01 23*56789: f

!»4$X6* /0123456789 : 5
ABCDEFGHI JKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZt
!"*$%£• U *♦,-./() 123456789: f
ABCDEFGHI JKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[
()*♦,-. /O 123456789:?
ABCDEFGHI JKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ [
!"4$%6' ( ) K+.-./01 23456789 : f

!"4|Z&* ()*+,-. /0123456789:»
ABCDEFGHI JKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[
!"*$*&• ()*+,-. /0123456789:?
ABCDEFGHI JKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZt
!»1$ZA'()*+,-./0123456789iT

ABCDEFGHI JKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZC
!"X$Z&*()*+,-./0123456789«?

Above are three sample printouts using (from top
to bottom) Corporate 10 (characters per inch),
Tempo 12 and Presidential 12 daisywheels of
Smith Corona’s own make.

PCN SEPTEMBER 15 1984

THE HOME COMPUTER SPECIALISTS
SEPTEMBER BARGAINS

BBC MODEL B

with five software cassettes

£345 VAT inc.

ACORN ELECTRON

with Plus 1 interface

£229 VAT inc.

230 T0LW0RTH RISE SOUTH,
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Tel: 01-337 4317

SUTTON 01-642 2534
EALING 01-992 5855
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FROM OLD KENT ROAD
TO MAYFAIR

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THE COMPUTER »* AN ACTIVE AND INTELLIGENT PLATER IN THIS COMPUTERISED
VERSION OP THE PORLO FAMOUS BOARD CAME ANO IS HARD TO BEAT
AN IDEAL CHRISTMAS GIFT

TAPE £8.00 — DISC (Specify 40 or 80 Track)£10.50
★ (POSTFREE) *

We're the
duplicators
that won't
treat you
like the next
customer

Yes, we're experts in the business of
data duplication, both in disc and cassette
format But that doesn't mean we treat our
customers like duplicates too! What Micro
Byte also does extremely well is to consider
the special needs of each individual
customer.

For a short run or full scale production,
Micro Byte has the capacity (over 1 20,000 •
cassettes and 1 8,000 discs a week in fact)
to give you the quality results you're looking
for - time and time again.

With years of experience in this field
and backed by the most efficient high-tech
equipment, you can rely on us to deliver the
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Both our duplicating service and our full
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Now you know a bit about us,
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liliCRO BVTE

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Micro Byte Duplications Limited

Unit 3. Old Coalyard Farm.
Northleach. Gloucestershire GL54 3EP.

Tel: (04516) 770 and 649 Telex: 4361 2 MIBYTE

SEPTEMBER 15 1984

Forsufferersof PCNitus

THE PCN BINDER ;

Since March 1 983, a mysterious malady v|||§|

has afflicted thousands of people in Britain —
PCNitus. The symptoms are perplexing. .

Those afflicted are found fighting their
way through piles of Personal Computer

Newsmagazines ...

muttering strange things like ‘can tfind
the Electron Pro-T est’ and The Spectrum
Micropaedia must be here somewhere . .
But a recent breakthrough has brought
instant relief to PCNitus sufferers.

The cure is called the Personal

n I Computer News

j binder. It’s red,

yellow and silver

HBBKillMI andholdsfour
mu ii i T rmtmmt m0 nths’ copies

completely flat,
even when full.
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WMmS 'Ammi i i"**" ":

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So if you recognise the symptoms above — take the cure now!

Justfill in the coupon at the bottom of the page and send it with payment (£3.50 inc postage,
VAT and handling) to the address below.

BINDER ORDER CARD. Pluse rush me PCN binder(s) at £3.50 each. I enclosed my cheque made I

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I Send to Personal Computer News, Binders Department, 53/55 Frith Street, London W1A 2HG

COMMODOM COLOURING

Colourful sketches were possible on Sandra Grandison’s 64.

D rawing and tracing pictures using
Super Sketch with your Commodore
64 can be great fun. It’s easy to use
and for a reasonable price provides hours
of pleasure.

Features

Super Sketch comes in a neatly packed box
with all the necessary bits to create your
masterpiece. With your starter kit comes
an owner’s manual . a quick reference card ,
some drawings, a Graphic Master car-
tridge and a warranty card.

Measuring 360cm x 25 1cm x 38cm , Super
Sketch is securely housed in a sturdy
cardboard box. The tablet itself, made of
plastic, has several parts.

At the top end of the device are a number
of keys:

UR — there are two of these keys (for
left-handed or right-handed people)
which, when pushed, allow you to move
the control arm without drawing on the
screen, or to escape from the menu and
return to the drawing.

Mnn — t he long bar in the centre lifts the
paper clamps on each side of the tablet to
hold a sheet of paper either for drawing or
tracing.

Mmti — when the Menu key is pressed any
current activity stops and the main menu
appears on the left side of the screen. The
Menu is a list of colours and commands that
can be used while you draw.

Select — this button tells the computer to
select a command or colour while in menu
mode. Select is also used to tell the
computer to use the currently selected
feature while in drawing mode.

Centre! arm and pointer — the control arm
moves the pen holder around the tablet.
The computer always knows exactly where
this pointer is — it’s used as your drawing
utensil for all functions.

Settingup

This is as easy as using a games cartridge —
but with a few more bits to get you started.
With the 64 switched off, plug the software
cartridge into the cartridge slot at the back
of the computer. Then take the cord from
the graphics pad and plug it into the
joystick port.

If you have a disk drive, printer or
monitor they can be connected in the
normal way. With all the connections
made, all you have to do is switch on.

Documentation

The 37-page owner’s manual contains all
you need to start you on your way to
becoming a Picasso.

In a clear easy-to-follow style the
standard controls and other features of
Super Sketch are explained with hints to
guide you. And to save time there’s a quick
reference card to tell you what’s on the
main and expert menus.

In use

If your drawing capabilities are anything
like mine and only stretch to matchstick
men, odd-looking trees and box-type
houses, you need the starter kit to get
going. It includes sketches of a bluebird,
an Island Rover and a cottage, all of
varying difficulty.

I attempted to draw and colour the
bluebird. First I held down the release bar
to slide the sketch of the bluebird under the
control arm and paper clamps. Then I
turned the 64 on and the Super Sketch title
screen came up. Next I depressed the
Menu key and instantly the title screen was
replaced with a drawing screen and the
main Menu.

Since the Graphics Master software
automatically starts with the colour blue
and is in Draw mode. I was ready to go.
Tracing and colouring the bird proved
difficult.

I held down. the Lift key to remove the
Menu from the screen — then, holding
down the Lift button, I positioned the
pointer of the control arm over the outline .

The next step was to release the Lift
button and trace the outline of the bird with
the pointer. As I traced the outline of the
bird it started to appear on the screen, but I
soon ran into problems as the screen wasn't
big enough to complete the outline.

To colour the bird I depressed the Menu
key and the main Menu appeared on the
left side of the screen. By using the control
arm, I located the flashing arrow at fill. On
pressing the select key, the area around the
word fill turned from grey to black. Then I
pressed the Lift key to exit from the Menu
mode and positioned the cursor in the area

enclosed by blue lines.

To complete the drawing I then pressed
the select key on the graphics pad to tell the
computer to start filling at the location of
the cursor and the bird appeared in brilliant
blue.

A zoom facility gives you an enlarged
view of the image being created around the
area of the cursor. As I drew an image I
could see the line formed in the zoom
window.

When I tried to draw in that comer of the
screen, the zoom window jumped out of
my way and went to the upper comer of the
screen.

Verdict

I found Super Sketch easy to use and it
wasn’t long before I could draw and colour
my owi. pictures. My main quibble is that I
found the control arm a bit stiff to operate
at times. Apart from that it’s a reasonable
buy for some fun drawing: in terms of a
business tool, however, I think there are
more sophisticated instruments to do the

j° b jPjj

Prefect Super Sketch Price £69.95 Miicchricnr

Personal Peripherals, 930 N Beltine Road,

Suite 120 Irving. Texas 75061 Onthta
Tomorrow.’* World Today, 27 Oxford Street.
London Wl. Te! 01-439 7799.

PCN SEPTEMBER 15 1984

DON’T MISS THE
MAGNIFICENT SEVENTH

Bted in the world of
only one place to be in
A ’ show in
[Show at

The most popul

The 7th Persor
from September 2(
Mingle with tf
what's new and up
profit from the exf
So rf you want
in September.

TAKE AN If
AT THE P(

nalComputer Worl
TSto the 23fd.
wgiants owhe mi<
>ind com/gyour]
ierience. /

: to be in^he know,

b world. Fit
ray. We thij

ember

out

you'll

September 19th - Trade/Press day only.

The greatest micro
show on earth.

TIMES: 10am-7pm weekdays. lOam-Spm Sunday. FEATURES INCLUDE: “BBC Radio Live at the PCW
Show." Businessman's advisory centre. Top 20 Games sponsored by Websters. The Leading Edge/the latest
products at the show. Amateur Computer Clubs. "Mastering the Micro" — Top 20 Computer Books/Software.
ADMISSION: £3.50 p.p. Group tickets (10 people and over) £2.50 p.p. Children (under 12) £1.50.

Please apply for your advance tickets to: Montbuild, 11 Manchester Square, London W1. Telephone:
01-486 1951.

PRE-VIEW

• WHAT’S NEW • WHAT’S NEW • WHAT’S NEW •

to software publishers: If
you wish your company’s product
to be included, please send only
the very latest releases to Bryan
Skinner, Software Editor, KM, 62
Oxford Street London W1A 2HG,
and please don’t forget to include
prices and a telephone number.

SPECTRUM

Adrift in Space is a text-only
adventure game. While we’ve
nothing against that, the way
the screen is completely re-
freshed after every entry makes
it rather slow and gets very
tedious. The game itself is a
reasonable adventure, you find
yourself in an alien space vessel
somewhere in deep space . . .

Automata's latest releases
naturally include the magic
letters ‘PI’, though at the ex-
pense of readability and the
English language — how about
Pi-in-' ere? (Pioneer?) It takes
ages to load, but despite some
clever graphics effects it’s not
really up to much. You control
one of those funnel-nosed
beasts so beloved of program-
mers. and are searching for
various items scattered round a
computer’s RAM. While doing
this you have to avoid various
classes of bugs, which look
much the same apart from their
colours, but which have slightly
different patterns of behaviour.
The first screen shows some
brick walls, you, the bugs, items
to collect and rotating edit

keys. There are swathes of blue
through which you can plough,
but doing so extends the bugs'
range. Removing the blue from
beneath an edit key makes it
fall, and if you can engineer a
droponto a bug you’ll gain extra
points. Hardly a winner, but it’s
difficult and reasonably novel.

Piromania is a ‘levels and
ladders' job. Walter has to fight
spontaneous fires by throwing
water over them. More water
can be collected from the tap at
bottom left and there’s a spare
ladder for making new routes to
help the inmates of Automata
Towers to escape. The graphics
are fair and smooth, but the
keyboard controls are complex
and awkward.

Silversoft’s last release
Worse Things Happen at Sea
was very good indeed, so it’s a
pity that its latest Hyperaction is
poor. The first screen fills with
large green acorns and small
blue mushrooms, then some of
these are erased and you’re a
white spider in the middle.
Pursued by Pac-Man characters
you can collect objects, push
acorns and so on. Further
screens offer different scenar-
ios, but I wasn't tempted to
continue.

Southern Educational Soft-
ware is preparing language
revision programs for students
taking GCSE exams. The prog-
rams are suitable for those
taking ‘O’ levels, because

there’s unlikely to be much
difference to the way subjects
are taught or examined in the
so-called ‘new’ system. French
Revision Level I covers regular
verbs, nouns and adjectives.

COMMODORE 64

Storm Warrior boasts a fast
loader, 12 screens and 5 levels
of play as well as a demo mode.
It’s one of the most atmospheric
arcade-adventure games we've
seen for some time and we’ll be
carrying a full review very soon.

Chiller from Mastertronics
was to be launched on Septem-
ber 5 and we’ll carry a review as
soon as we can.

Traffic is unusual because
your task is to smooth the flow
of traffic through various
screens by altering the traffic
lights at the different intersec-
tions. The graphics are rather
basic — traffic is shown as
rectangular blobs, large for
artics, small for bikes. You
focus your attention on the
intersections by moving a white
square, and pressing the fire
button changes the lights. Your
current score is shown and
you’re given some indication of
trouble spots by an index of
queuing vehicles. Not very
exciting and no way a chart-
topper.

TirNa Nog won’t be released
until October, but the press
release describes it as a compu-
ter movie with state of the art

animation. The action is pre-
sented as though a camera is
aimed at the central figure and
the player can move the camera
to get four different views. The
game is an interactive graphics
adventure in which the hero
Cuchulainn attempts to re-
unite the fragments of the Seal
of Calum in the landscapes of
Tir Na Nog. the ‘Land of
Youth' of Celtic mythology.

Pitfall from Activision is
Cuthbert in the Jungle in thin
disguise. Jump over the holes,
climb up the ladders if you
don’t . jump the logs, crocodiles
and on and on. If you like that
sort of thing you’ll love this —
the graphics are quite good and
the action is smooth.

Some of the other new re-
leases from Activision are less
than exciting. In Beamrider you
can move right and left over a
forward scrolling grid land-
scape firing at oncoming aliens
which release projectiles at you
. . . and that’s about it. Fast and
furious as you mount up points,
but old-fashioned by anyone’s
standards.

Hero is a mines game. As
Roderick Hero you must rescue
miners trapped by an earth-
quake. With your rotary prop
pack, dynamite and microlaser
beam you have to kill spiders
and other underground beasts,
blast walls and move ever
deeper into the mineshafts.
Brilliant it's not. Uil

BBC

Spaceman Sid

£7.95

English Software 061 835 1358

COMMODORE 64

H.E.R.O

£9.99

Activision 0628 72448/32839

Pitfall

£9.99

Activision 0628 7244832839

Beamrider

£9.99

Activision 0628 72448/32839

Zenji

£9.99

Activision 0628 72448 32839

Toy Bizarre

£9.99

Activision 0628 72448/32839

Chiller

£1 99

Mastertronic 01-486 3478

Traffic

£7.95

Quicksilva 0703 20169

Fred

£7.95

Quicksilva 0703 20169

Storm Warrior

£7.95

Front Runner

MEMOTECH MTX 500/512

Colossal Adventure

£9.90

Level 9 0494 26871

Adventure Quest

£9.90

Level 9 0494 26871

Dungeon Adventure

£9.90

Level 9 0494 26871

Snowball

£9.90

Level 9 0494 26871

Lords of Time

£9.90

Level 9 0494 26871

NEWBRAIN

Games Tape 1

£5.00

Eggbrain 061 427 7615

SPECTRUM

Tiler

£5.50

Interceptor Micro's 07356 71145/
3711

Tir Na Nog

£9.95

Gargoyle Games 021 236 2593

French Revision

£4.99

Southern Educational Software
0622 56376

Hyperaction

£5.95

Silversoft 01 7484125

Pi-in-'ere

£6.00

Automata 0705 735242

Piro Maniac

£6.00

Automata 0705 735242

Adrift in Space

£5.95

Mogul 01 947 4454

Flight from the Dark

£6.95

Arrow 01 387 2811

Lone Wolf

£6.95

Arrow 01 387 2811

Fire on the Water

£6.95

Arrow 01 387 2811

Terrahawks

£6.95

CRL01 5332918

VIC 20

Wunda Walter

£6.00

Interceptor Micro s 07356 71145/

3711

PCN SEPTEMBER 15 1984

Close encounters of the dBase
III kind for Geof Wheelwright.

PCN PRO-TEST]

SOFTWARE

IhrenCNipan

D base III. the 16-bit big brother to the
celebrated database package dBase
II, is now available in the UK. It is
compatible with its sibling and much easier
to use.

DBase II’s reputation for being the best,
and perhaps most powerful, database
program ever produced for 8-bit mic-
ros was tarnished because it is so difficult to
use. In today's world of detailed and
friendly front-end menus and programs
that hold your hand, Ashton-Tate has had
to rethink dBase's user interface.

It was no surprise that dBase II was
unfriendly — it was originally designed for
minicomputers at the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, as part of the
Mariner space program, and was adapted
for micros in the late 1970s. This latest
version of dBase is as up-to-date as you
could wish for. It’s extremely easy to use.
but is even more powerful than its
predecessor.

Features

DBase III requires an IBM or compatible
with a minimum of 256K RAM. It runs
under MSDOS version 2.0 or greater and
needs two 360K floppy disk drives. Given
the features, performance and reception of
dBase II. dBase III really ought to be the
high-water mark for PC databases and is
therefore open to heavier scrutiny than
most new products — but the program's list
of features suggests it should stand up to
that examination.

DBase III is a fully relational database
which can either operate in a simple dBase
Il-likc command mode or by using an easy
— but slower — menuing system. Assist.

It also has a new and extremely quick
sort command — for most small databases
you don't even have time to make a cup of
coffee before the file is sorted. There's also
a new indexing technique which maintains
a constant sort on the file (as long as you
select the index option).

As for statistics. dBase II can use up to
128 fields and hold up to 4.000 characters
per record, offers a Memo data mode
(which gives you space of up to 4,000
characters for notes on a given record),
gives you the option of running up to 10
data files at once and puts no limits on the
number of files in a database.

Besides all the flash stuff, the nicest
features of dBase III are the Help, Assist
and Menu commands. Help gives you
access to an extensive help file on disk —
which has detailed information on per-
forming many different common opera-
tions. It differs from Assist in that it doesn't
let you immediately use any of the
information it tells you about until you
come out of the Help menus. Assist, on the
other hand, uses extensive cursor-driven

menu options to execute commands. Its
role is to assist you to design a form, edit a
record or give a command, rather than
Help you with background information.

Another simple but noteworthy feature
is the ‘recording' facility of dBase III. By
using the alternate command, you can
record the whole of a given dBase III
session on disk as a text file — and then pull
down any information in that text file to a
word-processed document or have it sent
out to a printer. This allows for a certain
degree of integration — though by no
means as much as the company’s
Framework integrated suite (Pro-tested
issue 72).

And finally, there's the dBase II link.
Although dBase II files are not directly
compatible with dBase III, a conversion
system called dBase Bridge is included
withdBase III. Itallowsconversionofboth
dBase II programs and data to dBase III
format.

In Use

To start, just stick a system disk in drive A
and type 'dbase. The program throws up
the usual list of ‘You will be locked into a
dark and cold room for 30 years
copyright warnings and presents you with a
command line at the lower left-hand corner
of the screen.

Unlike most programs which use a
flashing cursor or some form of *>’ sign as a
prompt . dBase 1 1 1 uses only a full-stop (just
likedBasc II). But don'tthinkyou’re about
to be abandoned this time — the Assist
system is only a keystroke away ( Function
key 2) and it's well worth using.

The Assist command begins by telling

you which arrows do what and how to get

context-sensitive Help — use the FI key.
You’re then stepped through the process of
either getting out a database or creating a
new one — all by cursor-driven menu
options along the top of the screen and
highlighted file names in the centre of the
screen when applicable.

Once you've got the database out and I
start browsing through it or adding to it, I
you get a nice screen format for recordsand 1
an optional menu at the top of the screen
telling which keys do what to the cursor —
much like the ‘home' menu in Wordstar.

You can look at records in any one of a
number of ways — the two most popular
being the ‘forms' and the ‘summary'
modes. The forms mode is the standard
sort of ‘cardbox’ representation which lets
you move through the data in each field by
moving the cursor — and the IBM's Page
Up and Page Down keys let you move from
record to record.

The summary mode shows you all the
fields and about 14 records at a time on the
screen. You can then scroll the cursor up,
down or across the data in any field or
record.

Not surprisingly, the program includes a
‘calculator’ function in the command
mode. Like dBase II. dBase III is a
language . albeit a much friendlier one with
many more learning tools, and this calcula-
tor function takes the form of print
statements and arithmetic operators. So.
to quickly get a simple add and divide
equation done, you must type something
like:

?(23 +34 +87)/89

A more powerful facility perhaps is the

A sample of the extensive Help menu

— maximum help —
DISPLAY
Syntax

Description

Examples

see also

: DISPLAY

DISPLAY FOR <expression>

DISPLAY expression list> FOR <expression>

DISPLAY NEXT enumberof records> FOR <expression>

DISPLAY STRUCTURE
DISPLAY STATUS
DISPLAY FILE

: DISPLAY will show all or part of the database. With the proper phrase.
DISPLAY will show the database structure, the processing status, and
the contents of other files

: DISPLAY

DISPLAY name, address, city FOR zip> '90000'

: LIST.?

PgUp = screen. Esc = HELP. 'Home = last menu, or ENTER command.
ENTER >

PC'N SEPTEMBER 15 1984

index command — which I found a real
help in getting records out of the database
quickly. You establish an index by using a
database that’s already in use and the
command:

INDEX ON FIELDNAME TO INDEX FILENAME

You can then use the index — which has
been created as an NDX-extension file on
disk with the Index Filename you have
given it — to quickly get round the
database you indexed. You do this by then
saying:

SET INDEX TO INDEX FILENAME

and typing list — which will then proceed
to list all the records in order according to
whatever fieldname you originally speci-
fied with the index on command.

Verdict

By virtue of its power, user-friendiness and
compatibility with dBase II, dBase III is
well set to keep Ashton-Tate at the top of
the serious PC software charts. 123

A comparison of dBase II (left) and dBase III (right)

The integrated system factor

P erhaps the only cloud on dBase Ill's
horizon is the question of how long
stand-alone packages are going to
survive against multi-function integrated
suites, despite the weaknesses of their
isolated sections.

At the moment, memory and storage
requirements for an integrated system
whose database power could approach
dBase Ill's are very high but, as the price
of memory and storage fall . the likelihood

of an integral dBase Ill-type package
grows.

Ashton-T ate would probably point out,
however, that you can already integrate
most of dBase III into Framework —
although it would take something in the
order of 640K and a hard disk to be
effective.

The future of stand-alone software is.
however, an issue that wilt affect all
software houses.

The DBase II relationship

fjlood runs thicker than marketing —
C and despite all thats been said,
dBase II and III are brothers under the
skin. Each is essentially a programming'
language. dBase III being more or less a
superset of dBase II.

But if the two packages are brothers,
dBase III definitely has to be considered
the more personable and gregarious of
the two.

Asking dBase II and III for the same
thing will produce quite different results.
Gone is the annoying parade of zeros
that served only to intimidate the dBase II
user when he asked for a simple thing like
usTing on a given index. And added to
that same operation are helpful things
like field names above the records.

Aside from the Assist and Help
facilities, the other big difference be-
tween the programs is in the addition of a
toggled menu when entering, modifying
or adding records to a database.
Although most of the information is about
simple cursor controls, it helps reduce
the vast emptiness of screen that terrified
many a dBase II user.

Framework phenomenon

Y ou may think that because
Framework is one of the best inte-
grated software packages for the PC and
dBase III is arguably the best database,
that a combination of the two would be
ideal.

Well, you would be either wrong or very
rich. Both Framework and dBase III can
run together, but because each package
has a minimum memory requirement of
256K. the total needed to use them
together is 51 2K — and that's before
you've entered any data. You would
need at least 640K and probably a hard
disk before you could really start to use
the two packages property.

This doesn t appear to be a problem for
Ashton-Tate. The company’s answer is
to encourage Framework users, if they
want something more than is offered by
the database built into Framework, to use
dBase II. The older package is almost as
powerful as the new dBase III but only
needs 128K to get going. And Ashton-
Tate states that it will run beside'
Framework so that you need only a few
keystrokes to swap between the inte-
grated package and dBase II.

The only problem with this tidy solution
is that the people who've bought
Framework for its user friendliness will be
demanding a simple-to-use database
like dBase III. They'll be mightily con-
fused if they have to jump from some-
thing gentle and friendly like Framework
to the more esoteric world of dBase II.

However, it could be argued (and I’m
sure it will be) that because Framework
already has a simpler database facility
built into it. the dBase II option is for
people who have graduated beyond the
Framework database and are willing to
spend more time on learning it.

PCN SEPTEMBER 15 1984

Maternal

instinct

Name Oh Mummy %aftaei Amstrad
CPC 464 Price £7.95 PHWir
Amsoft, 169 King's Road.
Brentwood, Essex Fcneat Cassette
Law i if Machine code (MM*
Mail order/retail

Amstrad’s policy of marketing
conversions of games from
other machines involves high
standards: Oh Mummy would
be worth playing on any
machine.

Objectives

The main objective is to walk
an archaeologist around a
series of blocks within a pyra-
mid to reveal their hidden
contents. If this sounds reminis-
cent of the game Painter, it is;
what makes it different is a
number of bright yellow mum-
mies, determined to exert
maternal pressures, preferably
around the neck of your hapless
scientist.

In play

The cassette loaded first time
(I've yet to use a cassette on the
Amstrad which caused any
loading problems). A good
animated title sequence has
mummies making fools of each
other around the border of the
scorecard.

Options include speed,
mummy meanness, back-
ground music (monotonous af-
ter a time) and sound effects.

The game screen consists of a
simple maze composed of five
rows of four blocks, around and

between which you steer your
man. As you move, a track of
footprints shows where you’ve
been.

Once a block has been com-
pletely surrounded, it re-
veals its contents; thin air. a
treasure chest, a scroll, a key, a
royal mummy or another of
your pursuers. The treasure
chests and royal mummy score
points, the scroll protects you
from one mummy-attack and
the key is your passport to the
next level.

Each pyramid has five levels
of identical mazes and each is a
bit more difficult than the last.
In between pyramids you are
awarded either an extra man or
bonus points.

By choosing your route care-
fully, you can achieve some
very satisfying results by mak-
ing a final run to turn every
block over in quick s uccessio n.

The mummies stall off acting
fairly stupidly and may some-
times be seen amusing them-
selves in corners, but as the
game progresses they begin to
get the idea and start paying
attention to your tomb-raiding
activities.

Verdict

Although the game is fairly
simple in concept, it is never-
theless addictive. The
archaeologists and mummies
are well defined and smoothly
animated and the sound effects
are a definite bonus.

Simon Williams

RATING (/5)

Lasting appeal ««««
Playability #%««««
Use of machine
Overall value

Punch

lines

Name Punchy System Amstrad
CPC464 PHee £7.95 PuMMmr
Amsoft, 169 King's Road.
Brentwood. Essex Fermat Cassette
laagaase Machine code Outlets
Mail order/retail

This is the most original of all
the versions of Hunchback.
And it makes use of just about
all the traditional characters
and objects from the puppet
booth. Mr Micro, who con-
verted the game for Amsoft,
has tried to produce a program
that is both challenging and
charming at the same time.

Objectives

Mr Punch has kidnapped Judy
and locked her in the Punch and
Judy booth.

As the strong arm of the law,
in the rather paunchy shape of
PC Bobby, you make a valiant
attempt to reach her by jump-
ing. ducking and walking
through all the hazards the evil
Punch can put in your way.

In play

The playing screen is drawn up
as a traditional stage, complete
with tragicomic masks and
proscenium arch. The toy
clouds roll above as your over-
weight constable marches
across to the sound of his own
squeaky boots.

The figure is a good size and
moves realistically. The left and
right cursor keys walk him in the
appropriate directions, the
Copy key makes him jump and
the down arrow ducks him
down into a suitably Dixones-
que ’ello, 'ello, 'ello squat.

The audience obviously
don’t think much of his act.
however, since i he is forever
dodging their tomatoes and
custard pies.

Getting through each of the
16 screens is essentially a ques-
tion of timing, but fortunately
the flying obstacles appear pret-.
ty much at the same point each
time you play.

Points are scored for com-
pleting a screen and a bonus is
awarded for completing five '
screens without losing a life. At
the right end of each screen is a
small cot, and Bobby ‘rocks the
baby’ to the tune of Rockabye
Baby

Later stages involve jumping
onto carpets to cheat crocodiles
of a meal, avoiding the thrust of
Mr Punch’s sword and numer-
ous other well-executed obsta-
cles. Every so often Judy will
send Bobby a good-luck mes-
sage in the form of a sausage (it
takes all sorts) and if he jumps
successfully for three of these,
you can skip the difficult screen
of your choice.

It would have been useful to
have had a practice option to
start at any screen, and the
demo mode mentioned on the
cassette insert didn’t appear to
work.

Verdict

Although a derivative of the
arcade game, Punchy is suffi-
ciently original to stand on its
own. Indeed, for my money, it
is a better story and more
enjoyable.

Simon Williams

RATING ( 5)

Lasting appeal
Playability
Use of machine
Overall value

PCN SEPTEMBER 15 1984

GAMEPLAY

COMMODORE 64

Motorway

madness

Kmh Potty Pigeon System
Commodore 64 Nn £7.95

Sheffield 0742 753473 I
Cassette Law Machine code

OHmt vsrUiss None Outtete Most
retailers

Discover that life as a feathered
friend is not all eating worms
and standing around dozing on
one leg.

Objectives

Percy must build a nest by
collecting ten twigs from the
nearby motorway. On the tar-
mac he avoids squishing car
wheels, predatory cats and
ferrets. In the sky. Percy is
liable to be pranged by planes
and balloons.

In play

The credits roll to the accom-
paniment of a snazzy rendition
of a classical piece. Pressing the
space key takes you into the
lowest skill level.

Percy is a neatly drawn bird
who flies horizontally and verti-
cally. wings beating the air in
smooth and realistic fashion.
He flags along as fast or as slow
as you care to control him by the
joystick. As Percy wings his
way, the background and fore-
ground scroll along evenly at
slightly different speeds, giving
an attractive feeling of depth.

The passing scenery is pic-
turesque, if bizarre. It consists
of fluffy clouds, blue skies,
castles, shops, hills, trees, walls

and, at the bottom of the
screen, the ever-present motor-
way, complete with crash bar-
rier.

Down this mean Ml Percy
must go for that's where the
twigs are. He gathers one in his
talons, taking care not to be
squashed by speeding daytrip-
pers. Percy destroys cars by
dropping an explosive egg —
result, scrambled Chevrolet.

Each twig must be brought
back to Percy’s nest, avoiding
sparrows who are just waiting
for a chance to pinch the
hard-earned DIY material.

Percy partakes of a passing
butterfly for extra points and if
he’s really browned off with the
sparrows, lets them have it with
one of his eggs. And then
there’s the prowling cats, vora-
cious ferrets, planes and bal-
loons. Higher skill levels have
Percy living in the fast lane.

The music continues
throughout the game — it’s
pretty catchy and shouldn't
have you reaching for the
volume control. Losing the last
of your three lives brings up the
inevitable Death March but the
multiple-voice rendition of it is
so good, it almost sounds ori-
ginal.

Verdict

Great fun, excellent graphics
superb sound, and a worthy
challenge. Coo!

Bob Chappell

RATING (/5)

Lasting appeal

Playability ftftftAfl
Use of machine ftftftftft

Overall value ft ftftft

Whirlin’

Merlin

Machine code CNn
(MM i Retailers

Picture Ultimate's/ef Pac set in
Camelot, take away the splen-
did graphics and variety, and
this is what you’ve got.

Objectives

You are Merlin the Wizard who
must destroy the evil creatures
sent to destroy you. As des-
patching monsters is a drain on
your supply of magic, you can
top it up by dropping nasty
ingredients into a cooking pot.

In play

The first thing to strike you as
the demo cycles through the
four game screens is the un-
promising graphics. Each
screen, merely a background
against which the battle is to
take place, is nothing much
more exciting than some hills, a
castle and some trees. The
latter, all of the same appear-
ance and size, making a non-
sense of any perspective the
game might have had. They are
all simply depicted and serve
only as a backdrop, playing no
part in the game.

At the start, the wizard
materialises from thin air. Since
the monsters simultaneously
appear in random positions
around the screen, it’s all too
possible to lose a life before
you’ve barely begun.

The game plays very fast
from the off. so much so that it
almost seems the speed is there

to enliven what is otherwise a
fairly ordinary game. Really, it
is almost too fast to be playable
— even for the quickest ‘finger-
happy’ keyboard player.

The creatures are no great
shakes, graphically speaking: a
green ghost resembling a dish-
cloth, an overgrown asterisk
passing itself off as a blue
Hellwasp and some skeletal
faces.

The cook-pot ingredients are
no better. Merlin himself,
however, is not too bad, and
performs rather like an Arthu-
rian with a rocket pack.

Although the figure itself is
not animated. Merlin zooms
around the heavens, a puff of
smoke at his feet indicating his
self-propelling capabilities.
The idea is to shoot all the
enemy before they shoot you. A
press of the fire button causes a
fireball to shoot from Merlin’s
outstretched hand.

Meanwhile, the baddies are
chucking their own brand of
missile around. Occasionally, a
parachute floats down, heading
for the cauldron. Unless Merlin
shoots it down, it will destroy
any magical stew he is in the
process of concocting.

Sound effects, of the fizz-
bang variety, are minimal.
They don’t exploit the 64’s
sound to anything like its full
potential.

Verdict

Not a bad idea, but the imple-
mentation is weak by today's
standards. Merlin held no
magic for me.

Bob Chappell

RATING (5)

Lasting appeal ft

Playability Aft

Use of machine ft ft

Overall value ftft

PCN SEPTEMBER 15 1984

First, a question.

Who do you think are the
world’s most avid consumers of
microcomputers?

The ingenious Japanese?

The fashionable French?

The acquisitive Americans?

Believe it or not, it's we
British who own more micros
per person than any other nation
on earth.

Yet, despite its amazing
impact, the microcomputer has
only just begun to scratch at the
surface of our lives. Without
doubt, the best is yet to come.

Use and Abuse.

In several recent surveys,
some astonishing facts about
micro use and abuse were
revealed.

It was discovered that the
micro is hopelessly under-
utilised. If you’re already a micro
owner, your own experience may
well confirm this unhappy state gas
of affairs.

Brainpower. A source SS
of knowledge.

For thousands of years, Jr—

the key to self improvement has |

been in the hands of the written I ^
word. Now, thanks to
the Brainpower range, it’s very (

much in the hands of the micro. IT

As the Brainpower
range demonstrates, this does not
require prior knowledge of micros, or
how they work.

The Brainpower concept has
been devised as integrated applications
and educational software. And its aim

^WREN WILL HE STOPN
USING ME LIKE A TOY AMD
START USING ME LIKE
v A COMPUTER ? >

is to stretch both your mind and your
imagination.

It offers a unique way to realise
your own full potential and that of your *
micro. In a way you could never hope to
achieve from the printed word alone.

In this respect, the Brainpower
range stands on its own.

A unique concept.

All the Brainpower titles share
one thing in common, apart from their
stimulating subject matter, that makes
them unique.

You will find each title comprises
three distinctive elements: A teaching
program that helps you to get to grips

PCN SEPTEMBER 15 1984

Each Brainpower title provides a unique thiee part package an applications
program, a teaching program and an illustrated manual and interactive
tutorial - integrated applications and educational software

/TKNOW HE’S GOTA^s^
BRAIN IN THERE. IF ONLY
I COULD DISCOVER THE
^ BEST WAY OF I SING,

^ IT.

STAR WATCHER

The secrets of the heavens are yours. Isolate all the
constellations as well as main stars for easy
identification. Even turn stars and constellations on
and off at will. Screen by screen, you will see exactly
how the 1.500 brightest stars move through time and
space. And all from any point on the Earth's surface at
any time of the year.

Star Watcher is without doubt the definitive home
observatory.

DECISION MAKER

Should you buy a new
house? Change jobs?

Have children? Start your
own business? Such
decisions should not be
taken lightly. Armed
with Decision Maker, you
can be quite sure of
examining every avenue,
and arriving at a rational,
structured answer.

If you value the way
you run your life, you
need Decision Maker

NUMBERS AT WORK

Tackle all the number problems you're likely to face in
daily and business life From straightforward
multiplication and division of fractions, through
decimals, percentages, ratios, mark-ups and margins
to compound interest, depreciation, VAT and PAYE.

Numbers at Work gives you a distinct edge, since
you will be able to both understand and manipulate
numbers at will.

PROJECT PLANNER

Project Planner teaches you how to divide even
the most complex project down into meaningful
components. Learn how to determine the length
and importance of every single task, and those
elements critical to the fulfilment of your plan. Even
anticipate problems you hadn't envisaged

You have the measure of any situation because
you have the fullest possible grasp of all the factors
which affect it.

FORECASTER

r our micro can
ist in each other.

Forecaster takes the guesswork out of forecasting, by
accepting that tomorrow's events will be best
predicted on the basis of today's facts. Armed with
Forecaster, sales targets and growth trends, even
sporting events and election results can be
accurately and very quickly predicted

Invaluable to you in both your private and
business life.

with the subject at your own pace. An
applications program to put what you
learn into action. And finally with each
package, you get an expertly written
book and interactive tutorial.

ENTREPRENEUR

Entrepreneur teaches you all the steps required to plan and start
your own business. It will forecast your first 18 months' cash flows,
generate your Profit and Loss Account and Balanoe Sheet Help
you in discussions with your bank manager and partners. Explain
the notions of assets, liabilities, overheads, working capital, cash
flow and break even point.

Invaluable to anyone who is planning a business venture.

Tick your choice

SPKCTRUM

Tape

DISK

•10. BO Twit

Tiipe

COMMODORE

Disk

£14 95

£19 95

£24 95

£19 95

£24 95

Star Watcher

N/A

Entrepreneur

N'A

N/A

Project Planner

N/A

Forecaster

N/A

Please add Cl 50 foi postage and packing

* 1 enclose a cheque ot postal oidei. ctossed and made payable to Triptych

Publishing Ltd lor £

’ Please debit my Access __ __

Baidaycard number EJ L_

PCN SEPTEMBER 15 1984

NAME

ADDRESS

POSTCODE

TELEPHONE SIGNATURE

Send to Triptych Publishing Ltd. (TBL Book Service Ltd) FREEPOST.
CAMBERLEY SURREY OU15 3BR All goods fully tested and returnable if in any
way defective Allow 28 days for delivery ’Delete as applicable PCN129

BRAINPOWER

i i l l l l i i i l l i i i l i

PCN PROGRAMS.

Program notes

Title: Domino
Machine: Spectrum
Language: Sinclair Basic
Application: Game
Author: Mike Rains

I Pityourwits against yourSpectrum in a
game of dominoes from Mike Rains in
Durham.

The program is a computer imple-
mentation of the popular game, written
entirely in Basic. One person can play
| against the computer or two players

I can play against two computer hands.
Either way, it is possible to watch a
demonstration game in which the

I computer plays all the hands. At the
start, each player is dealt seven domi-
noes and from there the game proceeds
according to the normal rules of play. In
turn, each player must indicate which
domino they wish to play, and where on
the board and in which direction.
Pressing 'p' in answer to any of these
questions indicates a pass.

At the end of the game (detected by
the computer), the computer displays
■ all the players' remaining dominoes
■ andthewinnet'sname The computer's
I moves are governed entirely by chance
I but it is surprising how often it wins.

When typing in the program, note
I that capital letters within quotation
I marks in lines 70, 80, 800, 900, 1000,
■ 1100, 2530, 3510 and 3520 should all be
I entered in graphics mode.

I The main variables used are:

I a$(4,7,2) player's dominoes

I d$(2,7) user defined graphics for

dominoes

I e(2,2) current end dominoes

I f( 1 8,31 ) screen image — records

position of dominoes
I go current player number

I n$(4,10) player's name

■ oS demonstration game flag

I pi number of players

I t(4) number of dominoes

each player has left
I vS string of 32 blanks —

used in printing
messages

I z$(28,2) contains the values of the

full domino set

5-20

Dimension arrays, gosub
introduction and turn off
key click.

30-60

Read in data.

Horizontally positioned
dominoes.

Vertically postioned

dominoes.

145-220 Randomly picks a double

as the first domino
played by the computer.

230 Goes onto next player.

240-260 Goes into 'computer's

turn' routine if
demonstration or
computer's go.

295-318 Puts a flashing A or Bat

each end of the current
game.

320-350 Input A or B depending

on which end you want
to place your domino.

355-360 Unable to go.

370-420 Which direction — up,

down, left, right.

430 Current end dominoes.

440-470 Input direction using

unshifted arrow keys.
480-490 Error trap.

500-520 Input domino value.

530-535 Invalid entry.

540-584 Checks that player has

that domino.

585-597 Goes to relevant

subroutine for
positioning of domino.

599-660 Computer checks

player's dominoes to see
if any match the ends.

PCN PROGRAMS:

gi'ffr/ilf/iY.'fuW bTtUKUM 1W48H

Program notes

665-784

Computer chooses a

1495-1530

Routine for first move.

4030-4050

How many players?

domino and updates

1995-2010

Error message.

4046-4060

Do you want a

variables.

2495-2570

Displays the player's

demonstration game?

795-820

Places domino to the left.

dominoes.

4061-4090

Input player's names.

895-910

Places domino to the

2995-3106

Check for end of game.

4095-4540

Set up random set of

right.

3108-3109

Game over.

seven dominoes for each

995-1010

Places domino

3110-3140

Print results.

player.

downwards.

3495-3530

Set up user defined

4700-4760

Draw playing area.

1095-1110

Places domino upwards.

graphics.

4995-5360

Data.

1200-1220

Length of name.

4000-4020

Introduction page.

1995 REM E

rror

I INT FLASH

it BRIGHT 111 AT 16,31*

I 4070 NEXT

2300 LET jl-90 : LE'
2308 LET h-6
2310 FOR p-1 TO 7
2320 IF
2370

2330 PRINT AT )2,H
2330 LET Ml-VAL a*
T w2=VAL a*(jl,p,2

3495 REM Sat Up UDG ’ «*****#**»##
3300 RESTORE 3200

3310 FOR p-0 TO 71 : READ ql POKE

4100 RETURN
4493 REM Deal
4300 FOR
4510 LET
4320 IF

Dragon 12, joystick. convener, maga-
zines. M-codc hook, dust cover +
software. Less than a year old. £140.
Tandy CGP-1 15 Primer £99. Together
for £230. Tel: 01-3603443
Atari 400 16K + cassette recorder. Basic,
software, manuals, hooks, listings +
joysticks. All hoxed as new . Cost £450
new. £240 only. Tel: (0246) 414966.
Swop Commodore 64, C2N cassette.
Simons- Basic, joystick, portable colour
TV. software. Wanted Sharp M2K0A or
B Model or BBC. Tel: (0900) 65614
WANTED TRS 80 M U 1 extension
interface with or without RAM. Tel:
Nottingham 812894 Ask for Ted.

ZX81 Printer, i ?' M K W lute h. ,..i mi
Todmorden (0214) 566.

Oric Atmos 48K. 9 months guarantee left,
plus £45 worth of software, including
The Hobbit, and a cassctltc recorder,
only £150. Tel: 02 1-429 61 156
Tl D9/4A with extended Basie. Parsec.
Alpiner. Tl Insaders. Soccer. Connect
4. Blasto. Car Wars, plus lots of cassette
games and accessories. £200. Tel: 0245

Lynx 488 p lusapprox£IINIextras. In good Atari Disks

cond.£100onlv Tel: 01-735 4861 ext 69 * r 1

( office ) 0 1 -656 2897 ( home )

Spectrum 48K, Microdrive. Interface I.

ZX printer, proper keyboard. 3 Microd-
rive cartridges. Forth. Assembler. +
other software, manuals £220 ono. Tel:

Cliff 01-636 2 1 00 (days)

Atari 800 4 Ms £129 Also Roms. Chess.

Galaxian. Ccntcpcdc. £7.50 each. Tel:

01-5703690.

Wanted ZX81 printer w ith leads and paper
if possible Tel: Derby (0332)31007.

One 1 488, printer, recorder. £100
software . books, mags, brilliant lor small
business or for beginner. Worth over
£500 Sell for bargain price. £420. Tel:

0939 260 887 after 6pm
CBM 3032 32K computer ♦ Toolkit.

Combis-Chip. cassette. Commodore
3040 disk drive. Commodore 3022
printer. £8(8) plus £100 of software. Call
Allan Jones on Deeside 816893
Oriel 488 including; ill leads and adapter,
lots of software. (Hunch. Painter, etc)
and books. All less than 5 months old.
excellent condition Only £92 Tel:

0277-352881.

BBC B DFS. dual Cumana drives 20R
(new). Centronics printer, manuals and
games, disks. The lot £575 ono. Tel:

Richard on 01 -739-2273
Commodore 64, perfect condition, used
twice, also L2N unit All boxed as new
with all leads etc. Unwanted gifts Cost
over £260. accept £150 ono Tel: (0532)

696415

ZX81 168 computer with 50 games
cassettes plus other 2 1 games and related
magazines. £50 Tel: Chelmsford
381368

C8M-64 software for side Many titles,

Tel: 061-881 3651.

B8C B, latest specification, manuals,
leads, data recorder, software Worth
£500. Will sell for £250. Tel: 01-698001 1
after 6pm.

Dragon Software, 28 original cassettes, all
mint condition Many titles. £2-£4 each
(Getting a Commodore ) Tel: 061-682
5024 after 7pm.

Sharp M2-808eninp.iliblc to M2-80A and
M2-80B. printer. I/O box and cards, over
£2.000 worth of business, games and
utility software, over 1 1 languages. The
lot for £500 Tel: (0582) 458757.

PCN Billboard

on. all German
and Dutch, top programs. Peter Hcczcn,
Dorpsdiik 199. 3161 CC Rhoon (z.h).
The Netherlands.

Two Lynx micros 48K + 96K. printer and
joystick interfaces, word processor,
assembler, games, all boxed. Ideal for
communications link. £500 ono. Tel:
Warren on 01-841 5616

lly prograi

steps of program + 25 storage
registers + magnetic card reader, many
ready programs to run. Offers abovc
£200 Contact E Daggas. Airhc Hall.
Airlie Place. Dundee DDI 4HG.

Torch Z 80 disk pack plus software. BBC
B plus disk interface. BBC Green
Monitor. Total value. £1.400. 5 months
old Selling price. £990. Tel: II. Ileus-
chmidt. 01-730 1931,

Atari Disks lor sale Dimension X. £10:
A.E. Tumble Bugs. Track Attack. Sea
Dragon. £6 each. All originals. Tel:
0283-48415.

Lyax 48 K, in excellent condition, manu-
als. tapes, leads and user magazines
included. £l30ono. Tel: 01-561 4653and
ask for Daren.

488 Spectrum, DkTronicx keyboard. ZX
printer. Kcmpston joystick, and over
£850 worth of software Total value
£ 1 .050+ . asking £425 ono Tel: St Annex
(0253)738139.

Doesn't anyone out there have £200 for an
Oric 1 48K Atmos and 20in RGB? If not .
ring vour nearest offer to John anytime
on 0482-852671 .

Atari 800. 4.sK. 810 drive. 850 interface.
410 tape recorder, all £300. Also disks
and cartridges. Tel: 0970-828851
ZX81 IKK. U DCi . D K Tronic's key board .
screen inverter, games, utilities, many
hooks, mags. etc. £80 ono. Tel: Cam-
bridge (0223) 2 1 3687 after 6pm
Oric Atmos software wanted, pay halt
price. Send lists for reply by return to K
Gruszka. 1 13 Broomfield Road Marsh.
Huddersfield

Wanted Jupiter Act or ZX80. Pay max £12

or swop for Spectrum software. Contact
"Phred . 22 Lvnndale Avenue. Birkhv.
Huddersfield. W Yorks Tel: (0484)
29355.

Wanted. Any hack issuesof PCN. Musi he
good condition Will pay 25p per issue
Binders also wanted Tel: Northampton
890621.

Wanted Software for the colour Gcmc
(I6K). EG A-10 Bomber. Zen. any
Quest etc Tel: 0448-31520 after 7pnt
T199 4A Modules, Pttnec. Amazing, In-
vaders, Soccer. Alpiner. Connect. Four.
Henhouse. Ex Bax. two Quickshot II
joysticks, adapter for Alan com. joys-
ticks. all for sale Tel: (0603) 615599
VIC 20, cassette recorder. Intro to Basic-
computer course, two cartridges, tapes.

games, magazines, n
01-891-3850.

) kistx or software. Currah

Uspccch unit worth over. £240. Will sell
for£!70ono. Tel: (1324716104.

foi Atari V i Srn .
will accept any thing, money or Amslrad
games or ZX8 1 1 6K or w hat 7 Open to an v
offers. Tel: 01-67441781 aftcr-4 30pm '
Spectrum Micro Prolog program & hook
Cost £25. sell for £18 Write to: Steve
Rouse II Steve Trafalgar Wav. Biller-
ica) l m.( MI20UT

Look! will accept anything, eg 16 ZX8I
or cash or W.H.Y. For VCS O Bert
( £ 1 5ono ) and Spederman ( £5 ono ) . hot h
as new. used twice only. Tel: 01-674-
0781.

Commodore 1S41 Disk Drive hardly used.
Original box with six disks copy disk to
disk games and four blanks. £150. Tel:
Tvncsidc 4300059 (John).

Beeb Games for sale. All originals: Flight
Simulator. Eldorado Gold. Galazians.
Cowboy Shootout. £5. Super Invaders,
musiesynthesizer £6. Tel: (0656)721441 .
Video Genie 168, asset te. sound £75. ZX
printer. £10 Alphacom 32 printer for
W-ctrum. £45. Tel: Kirkham 682337
VIC 20 games including Sclpac matrix.
Bongo. Micropoly. £2 each. 33 games
cassettes total ROM cartridges. £3 each
16K RAM £9.99 Tel: 0294 56449
BBC B .is new with joysticks, advanced
guide, many mags. £1000+ software-
including best arcade games. Worth
£1448 Sell tor £399. buyer collects Tel:
(04X4)47949

Swop Sharp MZ700 mint condition in large-
brief ease plus v’w for Commodore 64
with vw. Write to: 214 Horninglow
Road. Sheffield

Dragon 32-2 Joysticks, duxteover. light
pen. large assortment of programming
books and magazines. Also 15 software
titks. worth £37. Will sell for £140 ono
Tel: 01-393-1425

Atari Disk Drivo wanted from I ondon
area. Price depends on model condition
etc. Tel: 01-722 3690.

Commodore Pet 3016 new ROM. large-
keyboard. I6K. cassette, built in screen,
very good condition. £250 ono including
games: Invaders. Breakout etc. TcL
Wolverhampton 757584
Spectrum 488 printer. 3 rolls paper,
recorder, downway progrmmahk joys-
tick interface, print 'n' plotter jotter,
over £100. Original software. Hobbit,
finance, address managwer. Worth
£370. £220 ono. Tel: (029) | 424526
8emp*»on Centronics printer interlace tor
49K or I6K Spectrum boxed. Hardly
used. £30 ono. Tel: Simon (0734) 584561
after 6pm.

Newbrain A with all leads, manual,
beginners guide, technical manual,
assembler programming language and
Basic. Cost £350 will sell for £99 ono
Phone St. Albans 33466.

CBM 64 software to swap or sell. Many
popular titles including International
Soccer. Forbidden Forest. Also educa-
tional software and business. Tel: Ruis-
lip (71) 75885.

Atari s For Sale Atari 41X1 with educational
software + casscltcc drive (opt. disk
drive) + lots of games. Around £250-
£300. And/or Atari vex + 1 7 Games + all
conlrollcrs made, around £100 (or k-ss)
Tel( (0932) 55203.

months old. still in box.
Excellent condition complete with over
£8) software, bargain £175. Tel: David
on 021 5204416.

TRS-80 Model I. level 2. I6K. video
monitor, tape recorder, leads, printer
interface (Centronic). games + business
software. Also manuals and extra books:
£100. Tel: (04024) 14413
For Solo Dragon 32. £130 of original
software (Buzzard Bait. Pedro etc),
manual. Leads, joysticks, etc. All for
£110 ono Tel: Laurence (0202) 737244
(after 5)

Applo N 64k RAM. 2 disk drives.
Micros ilec colour monitor. 80 column.
RS232. and Z8II cards. Pascal manuals,
books, magazines, offers around £1(881
tel: (0279)5.371 1 evenings
Lyn> 488, K ■xed as new. manual, leads,
demo tape, plus ascmblcr disassembler.
Lvnx user magazines. £110 ono. Tel:
((16333) 60547

T«x»* T199/4A. is new. plus joysticks,
connect four cartridge and Basie educa-
tion tape . £75 ono Tel : ( 1 16333 1 W 1547
CBM 64 Programs sale excellent value
70K all four: Helliblitz. Moonship.
Breakout. Packman. Send blank lane
and po for £4 to: Steven Natkin. 22
Havwood Rd. Taunton. Somerset
Microoet Acoustic Modem with BBC
software and power supply . hoxed £40
ono. tel: Kevin 04626 73283 after 7pm
TRS 80 Programs Wanted and (or sale,
completed Spectrum System for vile.
Penpal wanted. IKS Ml Model I I I
wanted write: 39. Tetburv Drive. Warn-
don Worcx. WR49LG
Beebug Magazines: v ok I and 2 complete
(10 issues), in official binders £17 buyer
collects. Tel: (01 444 6244. evenings
only

Oric 488 little used with cassette recor-
der. manual, leads, hooks. Forth and
many games, etc. excellent condition.
II lOonly Tel: (0732)450281 . evenings
Interface 1 and Mierodrixe-Brand new
neve r used Worth £0X1 Accept £65 Tel:
035389-678.

Newtrein A with all leads, manual,
heginne-rs guide, technical manual.
Assembles programming language and
Basie Cost £350- will sell for £99 ono
tel: St Albans 33466.

T19ft'4A Expansion Box (unused) ex-Basie.
M Memory. PRk. Parsec. Munchman.
all going cheap. Tel: Bristol 685934 after

Wanted Commodore 64 Tape Deck will

swap for McmolcchMIX-5<XI + tape
dick. Tel Blackpool (0253)403994.

Tl 99/4A Computer complete with rnanu-
ak. cassette leads. Muneh-Mancartndgc
and more "gl more from the TI99I4A ;
£60 ono. Tel: 01-639-5080.

VIC 20 Software 30 games. £2.50 or less
each — £50thc lot 20 CBM 64 games £40
or £2.50 each. P. Simpson. II. Egrc-
mouni Street. Millom, Cumbria
CBM 64 C2a Tape, ( 5mth G' tee), joystick,
reference guide, software, books, cover
and keyboard overlay, all boxed as new :
£220 Tel: Crewe 820349
Predicate (Desk) lor ( MB 64 only £25.
and Macro Assembler Development
System (disk) only £20. Tel: Albert
(Oxloidl ' I

Commodore 64 software to swap or sell
Titles include: Zaxxon. Blue Max.

J umpm.in J r and many more .write ( send
vour list) to: Hclgc Slava. 42 74 Slol.

Billboard Buy & Sell Form

Take advantage of our special free offer: send your billboard
advert in on this form and it won't cost you a penny. Please don't
forget to put your telephone number (or address) on the order
form as one of the 24 words you're allotted. Send your ads to:

Billboard, Personal Computer News, 62 Oxford Street, London

W1A 2HG. Note that we cannot guarantee that your ad appears
in any specific issue, and that we cannot accept ads from
commercial organisations of any sort.

Your name:

Address:

Telephone:

PCN SEPTEMBER 15 1984

R.P.S.THEMEM

7 Computers can only be really effective if the
/ information they use is stored securely.

/ R.P.S. specialises in the manufacture of advan-
jju ced information storage products that far exceed the
reliability standards set by leading computer manu-
7 focturers.

J Part of the giant RHONE-POULENC group,

CRT BUILDERS.

• •

R.P.S. is committed to a major research and development programme
to meet the storage needs or tomorrow’s computers.

The R.P.S. label is recognised by computer professionals everywhere
as a guarantee of quality in magnetic data storage.

The professional computer memory.

RHdNE-POULiNCSYSTEMS- High Street, HoughtonReg.s, Bedfordshire, LU55QL ■ .

Tel. Dunstable(0582)60555t A

RPS

DIVISION OF THE RH^NE POULENC GROUP

MICROSHOP

m: £12 per single column cm. Minimum size 3cm. Series discount available. Also spot colour available. Mechanical Data:
Column width. 1 column 57mm. 2 colours I ISmm. 3 columns 179mm. Copy Dates: 10 days prior to publication.
Contact: Tony O'Reilly

COVWOOAt 64 fl 9? OAlC 1 0 95 I

VKZO(~—) £5 95 )f!91 ■

SFtCTAUH £191 88C J191 ■

necison «.»i M

HIGH SPEED BACK-UP

HOME-STUDY COURSE
IN PROGRAMMING
PLUS TUITION. £35

Developed by Wolsey Hall and
approved by Commodore for
the 64. FAMILY BASIC is the
complete introduction to
programming.

Orders or free brochure from:
The Registrar, Dept FA2.
Wolsey Hall, Oxford 0X2 6PR.
Tel. 0865 54231 (24 hours)

BLANK CASSETTES

Guaranteed top quattty computer
audo cassettes at greert budgefprjces

Prtces Include VAT. post and pocking
a(C5|C4 35 □IC10IC4 40 □ICI2IC4 45

□ C15IC4 50 a(C30|£4.70 a(C60|£530

□ (C90) £7 00

BASF H.OPPY DISCS

Prices o< boxes ot 10

□ 5V< Single side/Single density £19.55

□ 5'/« Double side/Double density £21 .85
Q 5'/4 Double side/Quad density £28.75

DISC DRIVES

include Manual . Leads. Utilities Disc

□ TEAC55A 40 hacks- £139 eoch

□ TEAC56F4080switchableDS -
£209 each Free delivery UK only

Inckcate quantity ot eoch product requvecl ir bones
ChequePO enclosed toc£

ADDRESS

pnopcssionni

m«Gn£T)C5lTD

Casiette House 329 tVsiet Wood. Leeds IS103YY
FREEPOST Id. (06321 706066

WANTED

PERSONAL COMPUTERS

all models bought for cash

Morgan Camera Company

160 Tottenham Court Road,
London W1. Tel: 01-388 2562

DISCOUNT PRICES
Trojan Light Pen*

Spectrum. Commodore 64 Cl 5
Dragon. Tandy £11
Wrth tree software

LLAINLAN SOFTWARE
FREEPOST, LLANELLI. DYFED. SA15 1ZZ
Tet: 0269871 158

SPECTRUM KOPYCAT

Mg *r u r»y ikkh »

rr caMvt^MPY * itself

MICRODRIVE KOPYCAT

propam. Sags l rowii^rogriro^SStiiiTiw la U D t w *
mi Header Reader OtvacM t, Wrn <y Pm

MEDSOFT

PO Box 84, Basingstoke, Hants

VISIONARY VOLTAGE

Requires arcade and adventure game program
tor: Commodore 64. VIC 20, Spectrum and BBC
Electron Also programmers capable of translating
between the above (based In London Area
Midlands ) Please send cassettes with loading
instructions, and details to:-

Visionary Voltage
34, Bendemeer Rd. Putney
London SW 15

Senior

Technician

£8,781 -£9,339 pa inc

Wnte quoting ret F30 1 6 lor turtner details and an
application loan, posting tirst-clesslo : Personnel
Ottice. Middlesex Polytechnic. 1 i4CheseS.de
London N 1 4 5PN Closing dele 5 October .

Middlesex

.Polytechnic

WANTED

CONTRACT PROGRAMMERS

FOR ZX SPECTRUM
AND COMMODORE 64

m the software business

We re tootling tor programmers who are able and willing to turn
- delated specs into effective routines or pottshed programs

others require BASIC programmers who can produce last
accurate work

Write to us with details ot your enpenenoe it you are interested in
work at compebtne rates

C o Boa No. 76 at RCN.

SOPHISTICATED GAMES
FOR VIC 20 CBM 64

VIC 54 CRICKET Realistic game ol tactical skill and luck
Ball by ball commentary with lull scorecard and all the
maior rules Ot encket correctly interpreted
Pi inter game save facilities

VIC CRICKET lor VtC 20 + 16K itl

NEW 64 CRICKET with extra features I 99

LEAGUE SOCCER League title game for 2-24 players w.ttf
automatic fixtures, action commentary, results check,
scorer?, league table, cup draw etc Printer game save
facilities

LEAGUE SOCCERtorVIC20+16K 5 99

NEW: 64 LEAGUE SOCCER with many more features still ( 99

WHODUNNIT 12 guests have gathered tor drinks at
Murder Manor, but one of them has more than drinks on
hismrnd Addictive and thrilling detective game fori to 6
players, with genuinely different game each time
WHDOUNNI T torVIC 20 - Bk or any C8M 64 (state which ) 4 99

TOP OF THE POPS Easy to learn game about the music
business For up to tO players Includes printer game
save features

TOP OF THE POPS tor VIC 20 * 8k 4 99

NEW 64 TOP OF THE POPS- even b>gger and better S 99

ELECTION NIGHT SPECIAL Lead your own Party into the
next General Election A game lor 1-3 players
Printer game save

ELECTIONNIGHTSPECIALtorVICM + BK 4 99

64 ELECTION NIGHT SPECIAL - Dqger and belter

PARTY 4 Four games to match the Progress ot your
Party MASTERWORD, A DAY AT THE RACES. GAME X
(Strip Poker) and CONSEQUENCES Harmless fun
nothing offensive) but good fun
VICPAR1r4forVIC20+3Kormore 5 99

64 PARTY 4 COMING SOON

* NEW • : ADULTS ONLY Fun game for 2-10 broad-
minded players Lots of cuddling and kissing plus many
other rewards and forfeits you never know what you'll
end up doing . or with whom! Nothing offensive . but you
MUST be fairly broadminded

DISC VERSIONS AVAILABLE FOR ALL GAMES - £2 00 EXTRA
ALL PRICES INCLUDE P&P (UK ONLY) GAMES SOLD
St SJEC1 n : ONOmONSI 1 SAU MHN HARf AVAKABU
ON REQUEST PLEASE WRITE OR TELEPHONE FOR DETAILS
OF OUR FULL RANGE
SOPHISTICATED GAMES
Dept PCN. 27 Queens Road
Keynsham Avon SSI I 2NQ
Tel: S2755 3427

COMPUTER SOFTWARE:

list every 2 weeks
Altai CIO data cassettes 40p each 5 C15 data
cassettes £2 40 5W floppy discs D sided — DL
density £2.30 each or 5 tor £10.

PCN SEPTEMBER 15 1984

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[7 I T is a strife tom land which has never known
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Each episode of the Ket Trilogy hides a short part of a
sentence that is only revealed on completing the adventure.
Having come to the end of this mammoth I20K challenge, the
first person to discover the complete message will be awarded
a video recorder of their own choice (up to value of £400) and
the coveted award BRITAINS BEST ADVENTURER.

K.CASC NOTE Each oMhe Trilogy is aCOHPU tt ADVtNTURt M#
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| INCENTIVE SOFTWARE LTD. 54 London Street Reading RG1 4SQ. England

Extolling the virtues of Bracknell

The Margaret Thatcher School
of Oratory has claimed a new
victim. To spare her blushes we
won’t name the poor soul, but
after her performance at Micro-
Gen’s launch of Pyjamarama
she's clearly in need of sym-
pathy, help and a month off.

NEX T WEEK

Gflfiwtw

b*! | (use

The lady in question was
holding forth on Micro-Gen’s
various offices. She called
Ashford the brain centre and
went on to describe Bracknell
as 'the heart of the matter'. If
Micro-Gen had an office in
Basingstoke that would pre-

Sinclair silos

PCN recently took a call from
someone who desperately
needed a circuit diagram for the
Sinclair Spectrum. So what,
you ask?

Well this particular caller
claimed to be from the British
Army of the Rhine.

Since then our paranoia

1’rt* UvdlAAvftl CfOM

txAAfXurW. fc [ I

sumably be the armpit, but
wait, she hadn't finished with
Bracknell. Hand on heart and
slightly breathless (nerves, not
exertion) she announced: ‘It’s a
window on the world . . .’

This will surprise many of
Bracknell's inhabitants.

glands have been working over-
time — are they keen on using
them to control missiles? Is
Clive’s ‘one per desk" concept
about to become ‘one per
tank?’ And is single-key entry
liable to bring Armageddon
nearer by the difference be-
tween P and POKE?

We wish we'd asked what he
wanted it for now . . .

SuNlAXl

Terrors!

The Memotech 500, number six in
last week's hardware charts, is
rising despite looking distinctly
expensive in our version of the
price. We had it at £250 —
Memotech sells it for £199.

ComputeHand

remembers

From little acorns do mighty
oaks grow. Bill Hossack, gener-
al manager in Europe of the
Computcrland chain, was re-
miniscing last week about the
early days of the organisation
when it logged its orders on the
back of an 80-column card. This
year’s projected turnover is
SI. 8 billion.

On the subject of acorns, it
seems that there’s a German
expression whose relevance
we’re not quite sure of. Rough-
ly translated it says that even a
blind pig finds an acorn every
nowand then.

’PCN DATELINES!

PCN Datelines keeps you in touch with up-coming events. Make PCN Datelines should send the information at least one month

sure you enter them in your diary. before the event. Write to PCN Datelines, Personal Computer

Organisers who would like details of coming events included in News. 62 Oxford Street . London W 1 A 2HG .

UK EVENTS

Evunt Dates

Info North September 18-20

PCW Show Sept 19-23

Computer Communication & Control Sept 26-28
Strathclyde Computer and Business October 2-3
Exhbn

Computer Technol Exhbn — Comtec October 3-5

Computer Graphics FX Exhibitions October 9- 1 1
Apricot & Sirius Computer Show October 16-18
London Business Equipment Exhbn October 23-26
— LBES

Electron & BBC Micro User Show October 25-28
Home Tech ‘84 October 26-29

Computers in Action Oct 30-Nov 1

Venue

Belle Vue. Manchester
Olympia, London
Brighton Centre
Skean Dhu. Glasgow

Newton Aycliffe, co. Durham

Wembley, London

Manchester

Earl’s Court, London

Alexandra Palace. London
Exhbn Complex, Bristol
Anderson Centre, Glasgow

Organisers

BED Exhibitions 01 -647 1001
Montbuild. 01-486 1951

Institution of Electrical Engineers, 01-240 1871
GHC Ltd. 041-248 2428

Industry Section, Sedgcfield District Council,
0388-816166

Online Conferences Ltd, 01-868 4466
Paradox Group Ltd. 01-241 2354
BED Exhibitions. 01-647 1001

Database Publications. 061-456 8383
Nationwide Exhibitions, 0272-650465/15
Trade Exhibitions 0764-4204

OVERSEAS EVENTS

Event Dates

Software Ireland Exhbn October 2-3

Comp Conf & Exhbn — Mini/Micro October 2-4
Northwest & Northcon

Localnet Exhbn

Computer Exhbn — Computers

October 10-12
October 24-27

Dublin, Eire
Seattle. USA

San Diego. USA
Johannesburg. S. Africa

Organisers

SDL Exhibitions Ltd. Dublin 904171
Electronic Conventions Inc, 81 10
Airport Boulevard, Los Angeles CA
90045

Online Conferences, 01 -868 4466
Specialised Exhbns, 01-486 1951

EMT0MAL: Editor Peter Workxkl
editor John l cititL- Software edltar
Dave Alexander Aaefatant art edt

Laura Cade, Claire Rowbottom

Worlock Sub editors Harriet Arnold, Leah Barham News editor 1 Kind Guest Newi writer Ralph Bancmii News wrtter/Sob editor SnuhaGrandison Features

ware editor Brvan Skinner Peripber s liedtt o cKynnGarrochHatdta s tsedttarStu.inC.xikc Programs editor Nickic Robinson Art dtooetor Jim Dansic Art editor
lent art editor Tim Brown Layout artist Bruce Preston Publisher Cyndy Miles Publishing assistant Tobc Bcndcth

frtjsing manager IVtcr ( inUKicin Advarti i smon t manager Bctlin.i Vulli. mi-. Assistant advertisement managers Sarah Barron. Phil t’raliSeoiersaleeeaecutlvas

.owtvottom Sales executives Claire Barnes. Phil Benson. Mike Blackman. Paul Evans, Tony Keefe, Christian McCarthy. Amanda Moore, Sarah
Production ■■ i n : o Adverti s ement assistant Karen Isaac Subscription enquiries < nil Stevens Subscription address 5? Frith Street London W1A

rial address 62 Oxford Street London W1A 2HG. 01 -636 68<h I Advertising address 62 Oxford Street London W1A 2HG 01-323 3211 Published by VNU
Evelyn House. 62 Oxford Street London W1 A 2HG© VNU 1983. No material may be reproduced in whole or in part without written consent from the
>toset by Quickset, 184-186 Old Street, London EC1 .Printed by Chase Web Offset. St Austell, Cornwall. Distributed by Seymour Press. 334 Brixton
11-733 4444 Registered at the PO as a newspaper

PCN SEPTEMBER 15 1984

64K User RAM™

and not a bit less . . .

The M TX5 1 2 comes with 64K RAM, expandable to 5 1 2K. Add to this another 1 6K VideoRAM dedicated solely to handling the
screen memory, and you've got 80K. But how much user RAM is left when you're running high resolution graphics programs?

Unlike other machines, the answer is still 64K, because the M TX5 1 2 uses the 1 6K VideoRAM plus a second processor - the Texas '

TMS9929A - to take core of screen graphics. The main processor used in theMTXS 1 2 is the Zilog Z80A, which gives the MIX Series
CP/M compatibility - CP/M was written around the Zilog Series. And the Z80A inside the 5 1 2 operates at 4MHz.

Expansion is no problem with the M TX Senes, because it is designed as on intedocking system - from the M TX5 12 up to the powerful
Memotech Silicon Disc Systems.

MEMOTECH MTX5 1 2 MAJOR FEATURES ROM EXPANSIONS

... .... __ , . _ _ _ • MTX NewWord, a 32K word processing package

STANDARD I/O PORTS « Hisoft PASCAL, wntten specially for the MTX Senes

0 Vonable rate cassette port (up to 2400 baud)

0 Two joystick ports using Atari configuration THE KEYBOARD

0 Centronics-type parallel printer port 0 Full size, 79-key, full-stroke professional quality keyboard

0 ROM cartndge port incorporating:

0 Uncommitted parallel input/output port • Main Block with typewriter-style layout

0 Internal ROM board port 0 A separate 1 2-key numeric/editor keypad

0 Hi-Fi output port 0 Eight programmable function keys (16 with shift)

0 4-channel sound through TV speaker

• PAL composite video colour Monitor port GRAPHICS FACILITIES

THE RS232 COMMUNICA TIONS BOARD

(required for disc expansions)

0 Two independent RS232 ports

0 60-way Disc Drive Bus supporting up to four 5.25 and/or 8 inch
floppy disc drives, Memotech Silicon Discs, and Hard Discs

USER RAM

• Expandable to 51 2K in increments of 64, 1 28, or 256K
24K OF ROM which includes:

HI-RES GRAPHICS MODE

0 256 x 1 92 pixel resolution plus

• 32 * 24 Text in 1 6 foreground and background colours
0 All 16 colours (i.e. 1 5 colours plus transparent) are available on
the screen together

0 32 user-definable easily controllable sprites
0 1 28 separate GENPA T statements providing a huge range of
user-defined characters

0 MTX BASIC TEXT MODE

0 Noddy, a simple, text-handling language • Text resolution is 40 * 24 characters plus

0 A powerful Assembler/ Disassembler - sections of machine 0 1 28 user-defined characters

code can be created and run by calling the Assembler from 0 Eight user-definable virtual screens or "windows “

within BASIC

0 The sophisticated Front Panel, which displays the contents of all
registers (including the F flag register) and pointers during
program execution

0 All four languages can be used interactively with each other,
and with the user

SINGLE 5.25 DISC DRIVE - £ 399.00 inc VA T

Composing one Qume double-sided, double-density 500K
dnve, plus the Memotech Floppy Disc Controller Board, with power
supply, expansion sockets, and sturdy aluminium case
Single Disc System Software: MTX Single Disc BASIC
extensions on ROM, plus Renumber, 40 Column Text and Graphics
Screen, Binary to Hex to Decimal Converter, Data save and load
plus five games.

For further information, please contact:

MEMOTECH

MEMOTECH LIMITED STATION LANE INDUSTRIAL ESTATE WITNEY
OXONOX86BX TELEPHONE: 0993) 2977 TELEX: 83372 MEMTEC G

PRESENT
LEE MAJORS
in

KOKOTONI WILF

.^AAAAJy

Every single elite
product carries the
unique 'ELITE' Holo graphic
Sticker. Make sure your

guarantee of quality.

48K Spectrum
and Commodore 64

Mailorder Just send a cheque oHA
P 0. payable to ELITE or quote
credit card no jQ

^ A

Telephone (0922) 611215 Telex 535622 SPETEL C Attenu5S*iM

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